Transluminal coronary angioplasty (TCA) was carried out in 130 patients (109 men and 21 women) with an average age of 51 years (range 20 to 76 years) between April 1980 and December 1982. The most commonly affected artery was the LAD (100). All patients were on heparin, coronary vasodilators and calcium antagonists before the procedure, and on calcium antagonists and platelet antiaggregant drugs after TCA. The material and methods used were those described by Gruntzig. In this population, we identified a group of patients, Group I, with fixed stenosis and associated coronary spasm--either Prinzmetal angina (13 cases, 6 of which had both ST-T elevation and other ECG changes) or spontaneous spasm with a variable degree of stenosis (2 cases). The stenosis remained greater than or equal to 70% in all cases after intracoronary injection of nitrate derivatives. There were no differences between this group and that of fixed stenosis (Group II) with respect to age and type of diseased vessel (although the right coronary artery was more commonly involved in cases of spasm). The overall primary success rate was 72.8% (14/15--93%--in Group I, and 85/121--70.2%--in Group II: no statistically significant difference). The angiographic relapse rate at 6 months was significantly higher in Group I (8/12: 67%) than in Group II (15/63: 23.8%) p less than 0.02. When "redilatation" with stable success is taken into consideration the difference is not significant (33% and 22.2% respectively). The relapses may be dissociated in Group I (2 cases with recurrent spastic angina and normal angiography).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)