Disease prediction from diagnostic reports and pathological images using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is one of the fastest emerging applications in recent days. Researchers are striving to achieve near-perfect results using advanced hardware technologies in amalgamation with AI and ML based approaches. As a result, a large number of AI and ML based methods are found in the literature. A systematic survey describing the state-of-the-art disease prediction methods, specifically chronic disease prediction algorithms, will provide a clear idea about the recent models developed in this field. This will also help the researchers to identify the research gaps present there. To this end, this paper looks over the approaches in the literature designed for predicting chronic diseases like Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Leukemia, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Chronic Kidney Disease and Liver Disease. The advantages and disadvantages of various techniques are thoroughly explained. This paper also presents a detailed performance comparison of different methods. Finally, it concludes the survey by highlighting some future research directions in this field that can be addressed through the forthcoming research attempts.