Angina is a common and disabling disorder that is difficult to diagnose, and can be difficult to control. Belinda Linden discusses the recent progress in understanding the underlying processes that influence angina and how this has led to improvements in its diagnosis and management.

Heberden originally introduced the term angina pectoris in 1772 in referring to a syndrome char-acterised by a sense of strangling in the chest especially associated with exercise. Stable angina is the term used when the symptoms of angina have been occurring over several weeks without any serious deterioration. Unstable angina refers to cases in which the existing angina worsens for no apparent reason or when new angina develops at rest. The term angina is also used in describing the chest pain associated with other conditions such as aortic stenosis or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.