Seven hundred ninety-eight patients with symptomatic single-vessel disease who underwent percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) between 1977 and 1985 were reevaluated by questionnaire 78 +/- 23 months after dilatation. Indication for PTCA was stenosis of > or = 70%, anginal symptoms, and objective signs of myocardial ischemia. The immediate success rate was 81.2%, and severe complications occurred in 7.1%, which included two fatal complications (0.3%). Repeat angiograms were performed in 582 of 648 patients who underwent successful dilatation and showed restenosis in 143 cases (24.6%). Within 1 year after the first dilatation, 586 patients had been successfully revascularized by PTCA (i.e., there was no evidence of restenosis or redilatation was successful), and 113 patients had undergone bypass surgery. The remaining 99 patients were treated medically if PTCA was unsuccessful or if restenosis (> or = 70%) that was not amenable to redilatation was present. The 8-year overall survival probability was 91.7%, and cardiac survival was 95.5%. The 8-year event-free survival probability was 52.7% for all patients: 62.5% in patients who had successful PTCA and 14.5% in patients who had unsuccessful PTCA (p = 0.0000). The cardiac survival probabilities of patients with lasting PTCA success at 1 year and of surgically treated patients were significantly better than those of patients who did not have successful revascularization (at 8 years 97.2% and 98.1% vs 88.9%; p < 0.04). Late events (> or = 1 year) occurred more often in patients who did not have successful revascularization compared with patients who had successful PTCA (at 8 years 57.9% were event-free vs 74.4%; p < 0.0001); even fewer late events were observed in surgically treated patients (at 8 years 88.2% were event-free; p < 0.004). Cox's proportional hazards regression analysis revealed left ventricular ejection fraction and revascularization status at 1 year as determinants of overall, cardiac, infarct-free, and event-free survival probabilities. At the time of reevaluation significantly more patients in the successful PTCA subgroup were still free of symptoms or had experienced improvement than patients in the bypass or medical subgroups (86.8% vs 68.9% and 59.5%, respectively; p < 0.0001), and more patients in the successful PTCA subgroup were still working (75.4% vs 53.3% and 56.9%, respectively; p < 0.001). We concluded that patients with single-vessel disease who have undergone successful dilatation have an excellent long-term prognosis with regard to survival, cardiac symptoms, and vocational status.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)