There are various risk assessment systems for determining the risk of coronary artery disease, with various emphasis on different variables above. A notable example is Framingham Score, used in the Framingham Heart Study. It is mainly based on age, gender, diabetes, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, tobacco smoking and systolic blood pressure.

A coronary angiography is performed only after a stress test or ECG shows a sign of coronary ischemia or CAD. This test is very important in finding where the blockages are in the arteries.

This test helps determine if an angioplasty or bypass surgery is needed.

During this test the doctor makes a small incision in the patient's groin (femoral) or wrist (radial) and inserts a catheter. The catheter has a very small video camera on the end of it so that the doctor can find the arteries.

Once he has found the arteries, he injects a dye in them so that he/she can detect any blockages in the arteries. The dye is able to be seen on a special x-ray machine.

The test takes one to two hours.

A stress test, is just that, a test to put stress on the heart through exercise. A doctor will put a patient through a series of exercises to measure the tolerance for stress on the heart. This test uses an ECG to detect the electrical impulses of the heart during physical exertion.

During this test a patient is put on a treadmill or a stationary bike. The incline or resistance of the bike are steadily increased until the patient reaches the target heart rate for the patient's age and weight.

An exercise stress test is not always accurate in determining if one has a blockage in the arteries. Women and those who are young may show abnormalities on their test even though no signs of coronary ischemia or CAD are present.

In developed countries, with improved public health, infection control and increasing life spans, atheroma processes have become an increasingly important problem and burden for society.

Atheromata continue to be the primary underlying basis for disability and death, despite a trend for gradual improvement since the early 1960s (adjusted for patient age). Thus, increasing efforts towards better understanding, treating and preventing the problem are continuing to evolve.

According to United States data, 2004, for about 65% of men and 47% of women, the first symptom of cardiovascular disease is myocardial infarction (heart attack) or sudden death (death within one hour of symptom onset).

A significant proportion of artery flow-disrupting events occur at locations with less than 50% lumenal narrowing. Cardiac stress testing, traditionally the most commonly performed noninvasive testing method for blood flow limitations, generally only detects lumen narrowing of ~75% or greater, although some physicians advocate nuclear stress methods that can sometimes detect as little as 50%.

The sudden nature of the complications of pre-existing atheroma, vulnerable plaque (non-occlusive or soft plaque), have led, since the 1950s, to the development of intensive care units and complex medical and surgical interventions. Angiography and later cardiac stress testing was begun to either visualize or indirectly detect stenosis. Next came bypass surgery, to plumb transplanted veins, sometimes arteries, around the stenoses and more recently angioplasty, now including stents, most recently drug coated stents, to stretch the stenoses more open.

Yet despite these medical advances, with success in reducing the symptoms of angina and reduced blood flow, atheroma rupture events remain the major problem and still sometimes result in sudden disability and death despite even the most rapid, massive and skilled medical and surgical intervention available anywhere today. According to some clinical trials, bypass surgery and angioplasty procedures have had at best a minimal effect, if any, on improving overall survival. Typically mortality of bypass operations is between 1 and 4%, of angioplasty between 1 and 1.5%.

Additionally, these vascular interventions are often done only after an individual is symptomatic, often already partially disabled, as a result of the disease. It is also clear that both angioplasty and bypass interventions do not prevent future heart attack.

The older methods for understanding atheroma, dating to before World War II, relied on autopsy data. Autopsy data has long shown initiation of fatty streaks in later childhood with slow asymptomatic progression over decades.

One way to see atheroma is the very invasive and costly IVUS ultrasound technology; it gives us the precise volume of the inside intima plus the central media layers of about of artery length. Unfortunately, it gives no information about the structural strength of the artery. Angiography does not visualize atheroma; it only makes the blood flow within blood vessels visible. Alternative methods that are non or less physically invasive and less expensive per individual test have been used and are continuing to be developed, such as those using computed tomography (CT; led by the electron beam tomography form, given its greater speed) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The most promising since the early 1990s has been EBT, detecting calcification within the atheroma before most individuals start having clinically recognized symptoms and debility. Interestingly, statin therapy (to lower cholesterol) does not slow the speed of calcification as determined by CT scan. MRI coronary vessel wall imaging, although currently limited to research studies, has demonstrated the ability to detect vessel wall thickening in asymptomatic high risk individuals. As a non-invasive, ionising radiation free technique, MRI based techniques could have future uses in monitoring disease progression and regression. Most visualization techniques are used in research, they are not widely available to most patients, have significant technical limitations, have not been widely accepted and generally are not covered by medical insurance carriers.

From human clinical trials, it has become increasingly evident that a more effective focus of treatment is slowing, stopping and even partially reversing the atheroma growth process. There are several prospective epidemiologic studies including the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study and the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), which have supported a direct correlation of Carotid Intima-media thickness (CIMT) with myocardial infarction and stroke risk in patients without cardiovascular disease history. The ARIC Study was conducted in 15,792 individuals between 5 and 65 years of age in four different regions of the US between 1987 and 1989. The baseline CIMT was measured and measurements were repeated at 4- to 7-year intervals by carotid B mode ultrasonography in this study. An increase in CIMT was correlated with an increased risk for CAD. The CHS was initiated in 1988, and the relationship of CIMT with risk of myocardial infarction and stroke was investigated in 4,476 subjects ≤65 years of age. At the end of approximately six years of follow-up, CIMT measurements were correlated with cardiovascular events.

Paroi artérielle et Risque Cardiovasculaire in Asia Africa/Middle East and Latin America (PARC-AALA) is another important large-scale study, in which 79 centers from countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America participated, and the distribution of CIMT according to different ethnic groups and its association with the Framingham cardiovascular score was investigated. Multi-linear regression analysis revealed that an increased Framingham cardiovascular score was associated with CIMT, and carotid plaque independent of geographic differences.

Cahn et al. prospectively followed-up 152 patients with coronary artery disease for 6–11 months by carotid artery ultrasonography and noted 22 vascular events (myocardial infarction, transient ischemic attack, stroke, and coronary angioplasty) within this time period. They concluded that carotid atherosclerosis measured by this non-interventional method has prognostic significance in coronary artery patients.

In the Rotterdam Study, Bots et al. followed 7,983 patients >55 years of age for a mean period of 4.6 years, and reported 194 incident myocardial infarctions within this period. CIMT was significantly higher in the myocardial infarction group compared to the other group. Demircan et al. found that the CIMT of patients with acute coronary syndrome were significantly increased compared to patients with stable angina pectoris.

It has been reported in another study that a maximal CIMT value of 0.956 mm had 85.7% sensitivity and 85.1% specificity to predict angiographic CAD. The study group consisted of patients admitted to the cardiology outpatient clinic with symptoms of stable angina pectoris. The study showed CIMT was higher in patients with significant CAD than in patients with non-critical coronary lesions. Regression analysis revealed that thickening of the mean intima-media complex more than 1.0 was predictive of significant CAD our patients. There was incremental significant increase in CIMT with the number coronary vessel involved. In accordance with the literature, it was found that CIMT was significantly higher in the presence of CAD. Furthermore, CIMT was increased as the number of involved vessels increased and the highest CIMT values were noted in patients with left main coronary involvement. However, human clinical trials have been slow to provide clinical & medical evidence, partly because the asymptomatic nature of atheromata make them especially difficult to study. Promising results are found using carotid intima-media thickness scanning (CIMT can be measured by B-mode ultrasonography), B-vitamins that reduce a protein corrosive, homocysteine and that reduce neck carotid artery plaque volume and thickness, and stroke, even in late-stage disease.

Additionally, understanding what drives atheroma development is complex with multiple factors involved, only some of which, such as lipoproteins, more importantly lipoprotein subclass analysis, blood sugar levels and hypertension are best known and researched. More recently, some of the complex immune system patterns that promote, or inhibit, the inherent inflammatory macrophage triggering processes involved in atheroma progression are slowly being better elucidated in animal models of atherosclerosis.

To discover the extent and severity of coronary artery ectasia there are a variety of diagnostic tools used. The most common method for discovering the disease is through angiography. Angiography is the procedure where a contrast dye is entered into the vessels and an x-ray is taken, which will allow the vessels to be seen on the x-ray. Using angiography clinicians are able to display the size, location and number of vessels affected by the disease. Is can also be analyzed through other methods such as intravascular ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging. Using these diagnostic methods, it has been discovered that the disease normally occurs most often in the right coronary artery, followed by the left anterior descending artery, and finally the left anterior circumflex artery. Using these methods Coronary artery ectasia can be divided into four different types: Type 1¬→diffuse ectasia in 2-3 different vessels, Type 2¬→ diffuse disease in 1 vessel and local disease in another, Type 3¬→ diffuse disease in one vessel and Type 4¬→ localized or segmental ectasia.

Because artery walls enlarge at locations with atheroma, detecting atheroma before death and autopsy has long been problematic at best. Most methods have focused on the openings of arteries; highly relevant, yet totally miss the atheroma within artery walls.

Historically, arterial wall fixation, staining and thin section has been the gold standard for detection and description of atheroma, after death and autopsy. With special stains and examination, micro calcifications can be detected, typically within smooth muscle cells of the arterial media near the fatty streaks within a year or two of fatty streaks forming.

Interventional and non-interventional methods to detect atherosclerosis, specifically vulnerable plaque (non-occlusive or soft plaque), are widely used in research and clinical practice today.

Carotid Intima-media thickness Scan (CIMT can be measured by B-mode ultrasonography) measurement has been recommended by the American Heart Association as the most useful method to identify atherosclerosis and may now very well be the gold standard for detection.

IVUS is the current most sensitive method detecting and measuring more advanced atheroma within living individuals, though it is typically not used until decades after atheroma begin forming due to cost and body invasiveness.

CT scans using state of the art higher resolution spiral, or the higher speed EBT, machines have been the most effective method for detecting calcification present in plaque. However, the atheroma have to be advanced enough to have relatively large areas of calcification within them to create large enough regions of ~130 Hounsfield units which a CT scanner's software can recognize as distinct from the other surrounding tissues. Typically, such regions start occurring within the heart arteries about 2–3 decades after atheroma start developing. Hence the detection of much smaller plaques than previously possible is being developed by some companies, such as Image Analysis. The presence of smaller, spotty plaques may actually be more dangerous for progressing to acute myocardial infarction.

Arterial ultrasound, especially of the carotid arteries, with measurement of the thickness of the artery wall, offers a way to partially track the disease progression. As of 2006, the thickness, commonly referred to as IMT for intimal-medial thickness, is not measured clinically though it has been used by some researchers since the mid-1990s to track changes in arterial walls. Traditionally, clinical carotid ultrasounds have only estimated the degree of blood lumen restriction, stenosis, a result of very advanced disease. The National Institute of Health did a five-year $5 million study, headed by medical researcher Kenneth Ouriel, to study intravascular ultrasound techniques regarding atherosclerotic plaque. More progressive clinicians have begun using IMT measurement as a way to quantify and track disease progression or stability within individual patients.

Angiography, since the 1960s, has been the traditional way of evaluating for atheroma. However, angiography is only motion or still images of dye mixed with the blood with the arterial lumen and never show atheroma; the wall of arteries, including atheroma with the arterial wall remain invisible. The limited exception to this rule is that with very advanced atheroma, with extensive calcification within the wall, a halo-like ring of radiodensity can be seen in most older humans, especially when arterial lumens are visualized end-on. On cine-floro, cardiologists and radiologists typically look for these calcification shadows to recognize arteries before they inject any contrast agent during angiograms.

Although Prinzmetal's angina has been documented in between 2% to 10% of angina patients, it can be overlooked by cardiologists who stop testing protocol after ruling out typical angina. Rarely, an ECG can capture diffuse ST elevations.

Patients who develop cardiac chest pain are generally treated empirically as an "acute coronary syndrome", and are generally tested for cardiac enzymes such as creatine kinase isoenzymes or troponin I or T. These may or may not show a degree of positivity, as coronary spasm too can cause myocardial damage or may leave the arteries undamaged. Echocardiography or thallium scintigraphy is often performed.

The gold standard is coronary angiography with injection of provocative agents into the coronary artery. Rarely, an active spasm can be documented angiographically (e.g. if the patient receives an angiogram with intent of performing a primary coronary intervention with angioplasty). Depending on the local protocol, provocation testing may involve substances such as ergonovine, methylergonovine or acetylcholine and hyperventilation. Exaggerated spasm is diagnostic of Prinzmetal angina.

One of the most important features differentiating ischemic cardiomyopathy from the other forms of cardiomyopathy is the shortened, or worsened all-cause mortality in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy. According to several studies, coronary artery bypass graft surgery has a survival advantage over medical therapy (for ischemic cardiomyopathy) across varied follow-ups.

Ischemic cardiomyopathy can be diagnosed via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocol, imaging both global and regional function. Also the Look-Locker technique is used to identify diffuse fibrosis; it is therefore important to be able to determine the extent of the ischemic scar. Some argue that only left main- or proximal-left anterior descending artery disease is relevant to the diagnostic criteria for ischemic cardiomyopathy. Myocardial imaging usually demonstrates left ventricular dilation, severe ventricular dysfunction, and multiple infarctions. Signs include congestive heart failure, angina edema, weight gain and fainting, among others.

Diagnosis can be based on a physical exam, blood test, EKG and the results of these tests (among other exams).

In "stable" angina, chest pain with typical features occurring at predictable levels of exertion, various forms of cardiac stress tests may be used to induce both symptoms and detect changes by way of electrocardiography (using an ECG), echocardiography (using ultrasound of the heart) or scintigraphy (using uptake of radionuclide by the heart muscle). If part of the heart seems to receive an insufficient blood supply, coronary angiography may be used to identify stenosis of the coronary arteries and suitability for angioplasty or bypass surgery.

Stable coronary artery disease (SCAD) is also often called stable ischemic heart disease (SIHD). A 2015 monograph explains that "Regardless of the nomenclature, stable angina is the chief manifestation of SIHD or SCAD." There are U.S. and European clinical practice guidelines for SIHD/SCAD.

Upon suspicion of PAD, the first-line study is the ankle–brachial index (ABI). When the blood pressure readings in the ankles is lower than that in the arms, blockages in the arteries which provide blood from the heart to the ankle are suspected. Normal ABI range of 1.00 to 1.40.The patient is diagnosed with PAD when the ABI is ≤ 0.90 . ABI values of 0.91 to 0.99 are considered "borderline" and values >1.40 indicate noncompressible arteries. PAD is graded as mild to moderate if the ABI is between 0.41 and 0.90, and an ABI less than 0.40 is suggestive of severe PAD. These relative categories have prognostic value.

In people with suspected PAD but normal resting ABIs, exercise testing of ABI can be done. A base line ABI is obtained prior to exercise. The patient is then asked to exercise (usually patients are made to walk on a treadmill at a constant speed) until claudication pain occurs (or a maximum of 5 minutes), following which the ankle pressure is again measured. A decrease in ABI of 15%-20% would be diagnostic of PAD.

It is possible for conditions which stiffen the vessel walls (such as calcifications that occur in the setting of long term diabetes) to produce false negatives usually, but not always, indicated by abnormally high ABIs (> 1.40). Such results and suspicions merit further investigation and higher level studies.

If ABIs are abnormal the next step is generally a lower limb doppler ultrasound examination to look at site and extent of atherosclerosis. Other imaging can be performed by angiography, where a catheter is inserted into the common femoral artery and selectively guided to the artery in question. While injecting a radiodense contrast agent an X-ray is taken. Any flow limiting stenoses found in the x-ray can be identified and treated by atherectomy, angioplasty or stenting. Contrast angiography is the most readily available and widely used imaging technique.

Modern multislice computerized tomography (CT) scanners provide direct imaging of the arterial system as an alternative to angiography.

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is a noninvasive diagnostic procedure that uses a combination of a large magnet, radio frequencies, and a computer to produce detailed images to provide pictures of blood vessels inside the body. The advantages of MRA include its safety and ability to provide high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) imaging of the entire abdomen, pelvis and lower extremities in one sitting.

It is not clear if screening for disease is useful as it has not been properly studied.

Areas of severe narrowing, stenosis, detectable by angiography, and to a lesser extent "stress testing" have long been the focus of human diagnostic techniques for cardiovascular disease, in general. However, these methods focus on detecting only severe narrowing, not the underlying atherosclerosis disease. As demonstrated by human clinical studies, most severe events occur in locations with heavy plaque, yet little or no lumen narrowing present before debilitating events suddenly occur. Plaque rupture can lead to artery lumen occlusion within seconds to minutes, and potential permanent debility and sometimes sudden death.

Plaques that have ruptured are called complicated plaques. The extracellular matrix of the lesion breaks, usually at the shoulder of the fibrous cap that separates the lesion from the arterial lumen, where the exposed thrombogenic components of the plaque, mainly collagen will trigger thrombus formation. The thrombus then travels downstream to other blood vessels, where the blood clot may partially or completely block blood flow. If the blood flow is completely blocked, cell deaths occur due to the lack of oxygen supply to nearby cells, resulting in necrosis. The narrowing or obstruction of blood flow can occur in any artery within the body. Obstruction of arteries supplying the heart muscle results in a heart attack, while the obstruction of arteries supplying the brain results in a stroke.

Lumen stenosis that is greater than 75% was considered the hallmark of clinically significant disease in the past because recurring episodes of angina and abnormalities in stress tests are only detectable at that particular severity of stenosis.

However, clinical trials have shown that only about 14% of clinically debilitating events occur at sites with more than 75% stenosis. The majority of cardiovascular events that involve sudden rupture of the atheroma plaque do not display any evident narrowing of the lumen.

Thus, greater attention has been focused on "vulnerable plaque" from the late 1990s onwards.

Besides the traditional diagnostic methods such as angiography and stress-testing, other detection techniques have been developed in the past decades for earlier detection of atherosclerotic disease. Some of the detection approaches include anatomical detection and physiologic measurement.

Examples of anatomical detection methods include coronary calcium scoring by CT, carotid IMT (intimal media thickness) measurement by ultrasound, and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). Examples of physiologic measurement methods include lipoprotein subclass analysis, HbA1c, hs-CRP, and homocysteine.

Both anatomic and physiologic methods allow early detection before symptoms show up, disease staging and tracking of disease progression. Anatomic methods are more expensive and some of them are invasive in nature, such as IVUS. On the other hand, physiologic methods are often less expensive and safer. But they do not quantify the current state of the disease or directly track progression. In recent years, developments in nuclear imaging techniques such as PET and SPECT have provided ways of estimating the severity of atherosclerotic plaques.

Vessel restenosis is typically detected by angiography, but can also be detected by duplex ultrasound and other imaging techniques.

The gold standard for measuring endothelial function is angiography with acetylcholine injection. Previously, this was not done outside of research because of the invasive and complex nature of the procedure. As mentioned above, the use of acetylcholine injections to test vasodilation is now safely used for procedures where arterial catheterization is employed (this method is less frequently used though, so overall acetylcholine is not used very often in this way).

A noninvasive method to measure endothelial dysfunction is % Flow Mediated Dilation (FMD) as measured by Brachial Artery Ultrasound Imaging (BAUI). Current measurements of endothelial function via FMD vary due to technical and physiological factors. For example, FMD is largely affected by hormones, especially for women. FMD values can differ for the same woman if she is in different phases of her menstrual cycle during the time of measurement. When using this technique on people who suffer from things like heart failure, renal failure, or hypertension, their increased sympathetic tone can often falsify the results. Furthermore, a negative correlation between percent flow mediated dilation and baseline artery size is recognised as a fundamental scaling problem, leading to biased estimates of endothelial function. For research on FMD an ANCOVA approach to adjusting FMD for variation in baseline diameter is more appropriate. Another challenge of FMD is variability across centers and the requirement of highly qualified technicians to perform the procedure.

A non-invasive, FDA-approved device for measuring endothelial function that works by measuring Reactive Hyperemia Index (RHI) is Itamar Medical's EndoPAT™. It has shown an 80% sensitivity and 86% specificity to diagnose coronary artery disease when compared against the gold standard, acetylcholine angiogram. This results suggests that this peripheral test reflects the physiology of the coronary endothelium. Endopat has been tested in several clinical trials at multiple centers (including major cohort studies such as the Framingham Heart Study, the Heart SCORE study, and the Gutenberg Health Study). The results from clinical trials have shown that EndoPAT™ is useful for risk evaluation, stratification and prognosis of getting major cardiovascular events (MACE).

Since NO maintains low tone and high compliance of the small arteries at rest a reduction of age-dependent small artery compliance is a marker for endothelial dysfunction that is associated with both functional and structural changes in the microcirculation that are predictive of subsequent morbid events Small artery compliance or stiffness can be assessed simply and at rest and can be distinguished from large artery stiffness by use of pulsewave analysis with the CV Profilor.

Unstable angina is characterized by at least one of the following:

1. Occurs at rest or minimal exertion and usually lasts more than 20 minutes (if nitroglycerin is not administered)

2. Being severe (at least Canadian Cardiovascular Society Classification 3) and of new onset (i.e. within 1 month)

3. Occurs with a crescendo pattern (brought on by less activity, more severe, more prolonged or increased frequency than previously).

Fifty percent of people with unstable angina will have evidence of necrosis of the heart's muscular cells based on elevated cardiac serum markers such as creatine kinase isoenzyme (CK)-MB and troponin T or I, and thus have a diagnosis of non-ST elevation myocardial infarction.

The treatment of coronary artery ectasia is normally done in conjunction with therapies of other heart disorders such as atherosclerosis and hypertension. To prevent the formation of blood clots and the blockage of the vessels, patients are commonly placed on anticoagulant therapy (e.g. warfarin, and aspirin), as well as anti-spasm therapy of calcium channel blockers. Coronary artery ectasia also responds to statins and ACE inhibitors.

Diabetics, despite not having clinically detectable atherosclerotic disease, have more severe debility from atherosclerotic events over time than non-diabetics who have already had atherosclerotic events. Thus diabetes has been upgraded to be viewed as an advanced atherosclerotic disease equivalent.

Prinzmetal's angina typically responds to nitrates and calcium channel blockers.

Use of a beta blocker such as propranolol is contraindicated in Prinzmetal's angina. Prazosin has also been found to be of value in some patients. Coronary revascularization is only useful when the patient shows concomitant coronary atherosclerosis on coronary angiogram.

Surgery for symptomatic myocardial bridge of the LAD may include myotomy, coronary artery bypass surgery, or both.

Procedure selection is based on the size of the underlying artery during diastole, the presence of concomitant proximal coronary artery disease, and the presence of anatomic factors that would increase the risk of myotomy. Surgical strategy for the management should be customized, and the treatment

of choice is myotomy but bypass surgery can be added

when there is proximal coronary obstruction or anatomic

anomalies that increase the risk of recurrence of the

obstruction.

In peripheral procedures, rates are still high. A 2003 study of selective and systematic stenting for limb-threatening ischemia reported restenosis rates at 1 year follow-up in 32.3% of selective stenting patients and 34.7% of systematic stenting patients.

The 2006 SIROCCO trial compared the sirolimus drug-eluting stent with a bare nitinol stent for atherosclerotic lesions of the superficial femoral artery, reporting restenosis at 2 year follow-up was 22.9% and 21.1%, respectively.

A 2009 study compared bare nitinol stents with percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) in superficial femoral artery disease. At 1 year follow-up, restenosis was reported in 34.4% of stented patients versus 61.1% of PTA patients.

Nitroglycerin can be used immediately to widen the coronary arteries and help increase blood flow to the heart. In addition, nitroglycerin causes peripheral venous and artery dilation reducing cardiac preload and afterload. These reductions allow for decreased stress on the heart and therefore lower the oxygen demand of the heart's muscle cells.

Antiplatelet drugs such as aspirin and clopidogrel can help reduce the progression of atherosclerotic plaque formation, as well as combining these with an anticoagulant such as a low molecular weight heparin.

Generally, it has a good prognosis. In Kawasaki's disease, untreated, there is a 1–2% death rate, from cardiac causes.

A selective coronary angiogram is the most common method to diagnose the condition, although it is sometimes not recognised until after death. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is also used as it is able to more easily differentiate the condition from atherosclerotic disease.