To the Editor: The editorial by Woollard and Newman1 discussing the best management of stable coronary artery disease is welcome and timely, but we believe their conclusions undervalue the benefits of optimal medical therapy.

The authors correctly point out that the early trials comparing surgery with medical treatment did not include aspirin, β-blockers or lipid-lowering drugs in the medical treatment group. Clearly, the benefits of these treatments have been so dramatic as to make these original trials irrelevant to current practice.