Premature atherosclerosis: Sounds familial?

The prevention of cardiovascular disease is an important challenge in current medical practice. Despite higher event rates and cardiovascular burden in individuals at a more advanced age, it represents a greater challenge in individuals who develop cardiovascular disease at a very young age. In fact, of all patients approximately 5% is affected with premature atherosclerosis.
Premature atherosclerosis does not only affect patients, but also their relatives. Indeed, a family history of premature atherosclerosis is an independent risk factor for future cardiovascular disease. In relatives of patients with premature atherosclerosis, the traditional risk score algorithms, which are used for cardiovascular risk prediction, poorly predict this risk. Therefore, novel methods are continuously developed to better identify high risk individuals within such families.
This thesis focuses on the role of a family history of premature atherosclerosis in predicting recurrent cardiovascular events. Furthermore, different methods to assess cardiovascular risk in unaffected relatives of patients with premature atherosclerosis are tested.