Using genetics to guide treatment and drug development in cardiovascular medicine: Time to reveal the proof in the pudding

Abstract

The last three decades have witnessed extraordinary advances in the approach to determination of cardiovascular risk and therapeutic agents to improve clinical outcomes. Despite increasing use of these strategies, our clinical practice continues to be challenged by an inability to accurately predict the likelihood of cardiovascular events in all individuals and a substantial residual clinical risk in many patients who receive evidencebased therapies. Accordingly, there remains a need to develop additional preventive approaches to reduce the cardiovascular burden in society. Recent efforts have highlighted the potential for genetic insights into atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) to play a role in both clinical practice and development of new therapies.