Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the leading causes of human mortality, and is a common heart condition that involves atherosclerotic plaque formation in the vessel lumen, which then leads to coronary stenosis or occlusion of the vascular lumen, resulting in myocardial ischemia, hypoxia, or necrosis. Inflammation plays a vital role in mediating the occurrence and development of atherosclerosis. Inflammation has been a research hotspot in the study of the pathogenesis of CAD. Increasingly attention has been attracted to whether anti-inflammatory drugs can carry out targeted intervention on inflammation and positively impact the prognosis of CAD patients. In this article, we briefly review the essential inflammatory molecules in the pathogenesis and the research progress of anti-inflammatory drugs for the condition.