Classical and Emerging Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease

In the last and the present issues of Seminars in Vascular Medicine, invited experts present critical reviews of the evidence on various known and suspected risk factors for vascular disease. These include descriptions of the risk factors and their measurement; associations with coronary heart disease (CHD), and other arterial diseases in prospective studies (involving meta-analyses where available); and evidence from randomized intervention studies.

We have included reviews of both ``classical,'' established risk factors and ``emerging'' risk factors, the causal relevance of which has yet to be clarified. The latter group includes markers of chronic infection, inflammation, and thrombosis, which are plausible mechanisms for the rupture of atherosclerotic plaques and the consequent thrombotic vascular occlusion that initiates infarction of the heart, brain, or limbs. We have not included two areas that have recently been comprehensively reviewed in Seminars in Vascular Medicine: diabetes (Volume 2, February and May 2002) and sex hormones (Volume 1, 2002).

The present issue contains reviews of several proven and potential mechanisms for atherothrombosis: blood pressure, body mass index, diabetes and glucose intolerance, plasma homocysteine, and circulating markers of infection, inflammation and thrombosis.

We thank all the authors for their contributions, and hope that readers will find the articles as informative and useful as we have.