Is there a difference between Coronary Artery Disease(CAD) and Coronary Heart Disease(CHD)?
Yes. However, some health professionals use the terms interchangeably.
CAD generally refers to the disease process affecting the coronary arteries (mostly due to atherosclerosis). Some people use it interchangeably/synonymously with CHD.
CHD covers diagnoses such as angina pectoris, acute coronary syndrome, silent myocardial ischemia, myocardial infarction, and the morbidity and mortality that results from CAD such as sudden cardiac death and heart failure.
However, coronary heart disease (CHD) is often the result of coronary artery disease (CAD).
Stable ischemic heart disease = coronary heart disease
Most of the time, coronary heart disease ≡ coronary artery disease = ischemic heart disease.
Another word that is often used is Cardiovascular disease (CVD). This refers to a pathologic process (usually atherosclerosis) affecting any part of the entire arterial circulation, not just the coronary arteries. Stroke, transient ischemic attacks, angina, myocardial infarction, claudication, and critical limb ischemia are manifestations of CVD