Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has developed as a noninvasive means of therapy for the control of pain of various etiology. Furthermore, the field of application of TENS now includes functional disturbances of autonomic systems (2). Thus, TENS used to control delivery pain, has been shown to increase placental blood flow (4) and Kaada (3) has shown that TENS can induce peripheral vasodilation in patients with peripheral arterial diseases. In a previous study the short-term effects of TENS were tested on patients with angina pectoris provoked by atrial pacing during cardiac catheterization (6). Stimulation had a pain-reducing effect manifested by an increased tolerance to pacing, improved myocardial lactate metabolism, and less pronounced ST-segment depression during TENS treatment compared to the control recordings at identical pacing rates. These beneficial results were due mainly to a decreased afterload, indicated by a drop in systolic blood pressure. The aim of the present study was to evaluate in a controlled long-term study the effects of TENS on patients with severe angina pectoris.

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