Aim To explore the relationship between human cytomegalovirus (hCMV)infection and coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods Peripheral blood specimens from 56 CHD patients and 42 controls were detected by PCR for the presence of hCMV nucleic acid in white blood cell using the hCMV pp71 gene primer pair, and the levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), apolipoprotein A (Apo A), apolipoprotein B (Apo B) in serum were analyzed simultaneously. Results With the hCMV pp71 gene primer, hCMV nucleic acid was found in 58.93% of the CHD patients and in 28.57% of controls, the difference is significant (P<0.01). The positive rate of hCMV in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and unstable angina pectoris (UAP) patients is higher than that in the other types of CHD patients(77.27% vs 47.06%,P<0.05). For the CHD patients, no significant difference in the levels of serum TC, TG, Apo A and Apo B was found between hCMV positive ones and hCMV negative ones. Conclusion hCMV infection is relevant to CHD, and may be regard as an risk factor for CHD; CHD patients with hCMV are apt to suffer from AMI and UAP.