Coronary Artery Disease

Quick facts about Coronary Artery Disease

  • Coronary artery disease is when your coronary arteries narrow with a build up of fatty material (known as plaque).

  • This process is called atherosclerosis. It happens as we get older; and as a result of other risk factors.

  • When plaque narrows the arteries too much it can reduce blood flood to the heart muscle.

  • Often there are no symptoms. Pain or discomfort (known as angina) needs to be treated.

  • Diagnostics tests can check your heart health and confirm if you have the disease.

  • There is no cure but lifestyle changes can stop the disease getting worse.

About the condition

  • The coronary arteries supply blood to your heart.

  • Coronary artery disease happens when your coronary arteries get narrower when fatty material (plaque) builds up inside them. This reduces the blood flow to the heart and is usually the underlying cause of a heart attack. 

  • A heart attack happens when a blood clot seriously reduces and completely blocks the flow of blood to the heart muscle. If you’ve ever had a heart attack, you have coronary artery disease. 

Causes of coronary artery disease

  • Your risk of developing coronary artery disease increases as you get older.

  • When plaque builds up inside your arteries it’s called atherosclerosis. The process starts when you are young and may be well advanced by middle age.

  • Most people have some level of plaque in their arteries.

Other risk factors that increase your chance of developing coronary artery disease include:

  • Age (being post-menopausal for women and being older than 45 for men)

  • High LDL (bad) cholesterol, low HDL (good) cholesterol

  • High blood pressure

  • Family history

  • Diabetes

  • Smoking

  • Obesity

Symptoms of coronary artery disease

  • Stable plaque is generally not harmful. When it narrows the arteries too much it can affect the flow of blood to your heart.

  • The first sign may be pain and discomfort called angina. Angina needs to be treated.

  • In other cases, unstable plaque forms that is inflamed and fattier. It can develop surface cracks, exposing the contents of the plaque to the blood.

  • When blood cells try to seal the gap in the surface with a blood clot, the clot can partially or completely block the coronary artery, stopping the flow of blood to the heart.

Diagnosis of coronary artery disease

A range of tests are available to check your heart health, including:  

Treatment for coronary artery disease

In most cases:

  • Lifestyle changes can stop your heart disease getting worse.

  • You may also need to take medications to manage some of the other risk factors of a heart attack, like high blood pressure or high cholesterol. 

In more serious cases:

  • If your coronary artery disease is causing serious heart problems, a procedure may be needed to improve your symptoms and reduce the risk of more problems in the long term.

  • Options include angioplasty, stent implantation or coronary artery bypass graft surgery.