Reviewed by medical experts • For informational purposes only
From silent buildup through effort angina to acute events and heart damage - the progression and how doctors grade severity.
CAD does not have a numbered staging system like cancer. What it has is a progression - from silent plaque to stable disease to acute events - plus practical gradings doctors use to describe severity. Both are worth understanding.
Silent or mild: lifestyle plus risk-factor medicines. Stable angina: anti-anginal medicines, with stenting for limiting symptoms or high-risk anatomy. Acute events: emergency reopening. Heart failure stage: the failure-management medicines join the plan.
Plaque does not fully vanish - but with aggressive LDL lowering, it can shrink modestly and, more importantly, STABILIZE: hardened, quiet plaque is far less likely to rupture. That is the realistic goal of treatment - turning a dangerous disease into a dormant one.
CAD progresses from silent plaque through effort angina to acute events and possible heart damage; doctors grade it by symptoms, angiography and pumping function - and treatment aims to stabilize plaque, not erase it.
Written By
Dr. Daksh
BDS
Reviewed By
Dr. Varun Gupta
MD Pharmacology, MBBS
Last updated on
27 Sep 2022 • 06:23 PM (IST)
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