OBJECTIVES Coronary heart disease (CHD) is nowadays the most frequent cause of mortality and morbidity in industrialized countries. In Europe it accounts for around two million deaths per year. CHD may adversely impact on the Quality of Life. The objectives of the study were to describe Health-Related Quality of Life (HR-QOL) in subjects with CHD and to compare their health state with the health state of subjects without CHD. METHODS: We selected subjects with CHD (Cases) from a representative sample of the Italian general population aged from 40 to 79 years, enrolled in a population based naturalistic prospective survey. We matched each of them by age and sex with subjects without CHD disease (Controls). EuroQoL (EQ-5D) was used to evaluate HR-QOL. We used Chi Square Test to evaluate differences in the five dimensions of the EQ-profile between the two groups. Paired sample T test was used to evaluate differences in EQ-VAS. RESULTS We analyzed two groups of 98 subjects per group. The mean age was 64.7 (SD 8.6) years, (69.4%) were male. More problems were reported in cases than in controls in the mobility dimension, usual activities, self care and anxiety/depression dimensions. These differences prived statistically significant. Whereas in pain/discomfort domain there was no significant difference between the two groups. Mean values of the visual analogue scale assessing global health status indicated by case and control were 68.1 and 66.94, respectively (P = 0.005). CONCLUSION. The study, comparing subjects of the same age and sex with and without CHD, suggests that the presence of CHD is associated with higher problems in HR.