Vascular disease, hypertension, and prevention: "From endothelium to clinical events"

The VHP track integrates the full spectrum of knowledge "from endothelium to clinical events" to translate vascular biology into clinical practice. The data presented at ACC'03 demonstrate that there are a series of metabolic and inflammatory markers that predict coronary artery and peripheral arterial risk. This risk describes the future burden of clinical disease and identifies individuals in whom treatment can be effective. This year, this ability to predict risk has been extended to non-coronary circulations such as PAD. These data have further anchored the importance of the metabolic syndrome and, in particular, have outlined the very large contributions to our knowledge base derived from large clinical trials populations, such as the MRFIT, WOSCOPS, ASCOT, and St. Francis Heart Study populations. Vascular biology provides the foundation for understanding the causes of systemic atherosclerosis in all vascular beds as well as its clinical manifestations. Cardiovascular epidemiology and interventional clinical trials can define the populations at risk and methods to effectively lower risk.