Taming the No.1 Killer: Heart Disease

Doctors attack heart disease with new techniques and potent drugs

Charles Weiner, 45, was trudging through Boston's snowy streets one night when he suddenly felt a gripping pain in his chest. In the previous eight years he had had two similar experiences, but after thorough physicals, including blood tests and electrocardiograms, doctors could find nothing wrong with his heart and attributed the pains to a mild gall bladder attack or chest muscle strain. This time, though, Weiner was given a new diagnostic test. Doctors injected a radioactive substance into his bloodstream, then took...