In the last decades, the introduction of statins, benefits of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, coronary artery revascularisation or prophylactic programmes brought about the breakthrough in treating diseases of the circulatory system, in particular ischaemic heart disease. The basis for treating stable coronary artery disease is the administrations of drugs, such as: antiplatelet drugs, statins and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (particularly in concomitant indications) as medicines the improve survival as well as symptomatic drugs, particularly beta blockers, which may additionally influence the prognosis of patients with the history of heart attack. On the other hand, symptomatic patients with advanced coronary artery disease in whom revascularisation is not possible or burdened with too great risk and patients who do not consent to the procedure constitute a major therapeutic challenge for attending physicians. In such situations, additional options are worth considering, such as the application of metabolic drugs which are described in the standards as drugs added to the therapy conducted so far or used as substitutes in case of intolerance of current treatment. The management of the patient with coronary artery disease presented in this paper constitutes an example that pictures a difficult case of coronary artery disease treatment and a situation in which metabolic drugs are used.

coronary artery disease, revascularisation, trimetazidine, metabolic drugs, myocardial infarction