Ischemic disease is one of the serious diseases that is harm to human health, which mainly includes ischemic cerebrovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, ischemic disease of lower extremities. Progenitor cells and stem cells are pluripotent cells with self-replicating ability. Under certain conditions, they are able to differentiate into a variety of cells. According to the developmental stages of stem cells, it is classified into embryonic stem cells and somatic stem cells. Although embryonic stem cells have abilities of differentiating into any cell, the ethics dispute makes its study difficult. Compared with embryonic stem cells, somatic stem cells can not only avoid the ethical controversy, but also have no immune rejection after transplanting. Therefore, this essay focuses on the application of stem cells and progenitor cells in ischemic disease. In recent years, the research on the application of progenitor cells and stem cells in this kind of disease has increased, and aroused wide attention, which provides us with a new approach to the treatment of ischemic diseases.