Family Heart Study - Subclinical Atherosclerosis Network (FHS-SCAN)

BACKGROUND:

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, along with its related health expenditures, mortality, and morbidity, remains among the most significant health-related conditions in the United States and other developed countries. The substantial resources that have been expended to investigate this problem have led to significant scientific advances in the basic biology, clinical management, epidemiology, and public health intervention approaches. Despite these real advances, there remains much more to be done in terms of understanding the basic biological and social processes, treatment, and public health programs.

Just as earlier research was effective in identifying a variety of epidemiologic risk factors for cardiovascular disease, recent advances make it possible to bring to bear a variety of new and powerful tools to detailed study of the basic processes involved in atherogenesis. Application of these tools, in combination with synthesis of prior basic and epidemiologic results, provides a powerful approach that is more model-driven than many previous studies.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

The Subclinical Atherosclerosis Network is a multicenter study of the genetic epidemiology of coronary and aortic calcification and of inflammatory markers. It examines two areas of great interest in contemporary vascular medicine, namely vascular calcification and inflammation in approximately 3000 persons who have been recruited to the Family Heart Study, with additional persons of African American descent contributed by the HyperGEN Study. Considerable data, including a large number of genotypes, have been collected in the Family Heart Study. The subjects will be brought back for additional data collection, including the measurement of inflammatory markers and coronary and aortic calcification by computed tomography (CT).