These guidelines should be applied to patients with stable known or suspected coronary artery disease (SCAD). This condition encompasses several groups of patients: (i) those having stable angina pectoris or other symptoms felt to be related to coronary artery disease (CAD) such as dyspnoea; (ii) those previously symptomatic with known obstructive or non-obstructive CAD, who have become asymptomatic with treatment and need regular follow-up; (iii) those who report symptoms for the first time and are judged to already be in a chronic stable condition (for instance because history-taking reveals that similar symptoms were already present for several months).
Hence, SCAD defines the different evolutionary phases of CAD, excluding the situations in, which coronary artery thrombosis dominates clinical presentation (acute coronary syndromes).
However, patients who have a first or recurrent manifestation of angina but can be categorized as having a low-risk acute coronary syndrome (ACS) according to the current ACS guidelines of the ESC [no recurrence of chest pain, no signs of heart failure, no abnormalities in the resting electrocardiogram (ECG), no rise in markers of myocardial necrosis (preferably troponin) and hence are not candidates for swift intervention]1 should also be managed according to the algorithms presented in these Guidelines.
Although routine screening of asymptomatic patients is discouraged,2 these guidelines can also be applied to asymptomatic patients presenting for further evaluation due to an abnormal test. The scope of the present Guidelines, therefore, spans from asymptomatic individuals to patients after stabilisation of an ACS.
