Samar K Daaskundu

A Diagnostic Perspective on Heart Disease and Lipid Disorders Samar K Daaskundu

Cardiovascular Heart Disease (CHD) remains the leading cause of death and disability in in recent years. About 13 million Americans have CHD, 1.5 million have a myocardial infarction (MI) each year, and nearly 500,000 die of CHD each year. CHD is caused by atherosclerosis, a process characterized by endothelial dysfunction-in association with hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and elevated homocysteine concentrations- and cholesterol deposition in macrophages and smooth muscle cells in the arterial wall as the result of elevated LDL, lipoprotein(a), and remnant lipoproteins and decreased HDL. In diagnostics cardiac biomarkers (proteins and enzymes) serve as indicators of disease trait (risk factor), disease state (preclinical or clinical), or disease rate (progression) and are being used in identifying the risk of developing an illness, screening for disease, diagnosis, disease severity, or prognostic predicting future disease course, including recurrence and response to therapy, and monitoring efficacy of therapyThe biomarkers are substances that are released into the blood when the heart is damaged or stressed. Measurements of these released substances are used to help diagnose acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and cardiac ischemia, conditions associated with insufficient blood flow to the heart. In this book, I will review the role of various aspects of cardiac biomarkers associated with heart disease and present-day knowledge of their use . The status of genetically inherited lipid disorders will also be reviewed.