Will sensitivity to the psychological aspects of obesity, including lifestyle priorities and motivations, improve the efficacy of long-term effectiveness of weight loss and obesity prevention interventions?

A comprehensive research strategy and plan is needed to determine the most efficient, safe, cost-effective and widely applicable strategy to decrease circulating levels of lipoprotein(a) and to determine whether lowering circulating lipoprotein(a) levels will reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease such as a heart attack or a stroke as well as the progression of atherosclerosis or aortic stenosis.

CC: Despite the potential impact that venous thrombotic events (VTE) have on children with cancer, several unresolved issues remain. To date, we are yet to understand:
- incidence/prevalence of VTE according to cancer type/staging
- ideal imaging modalities to diagnose/follow VTE
- thromboprophylaxis according to thrombosis risk stratification (development of VTE predictors)
- efficacy/safety to anticoagulate children... more »

There is a great need for the development and evaluation of biomarkers for the study of venous thromboembolism (VTE) pathophysiology and risk assessment.

Improving Tools for Anticoagulation Decision-Making

What can be done to prevent the development of COPD in individuals at increased risk. Quitting smoking before the development of COPD can prevent COPD development. What can be done to prevent COPD for individuals with other identified ris factors

Would better management of modifiable risk factors, including obesity, sleep apnea, hypertension, hyperglycemia, and metabolic syndrome, reduce atrial fibrillation recurrence? Furthermore, what are the best methods to reduce the onset, hospitalization, and death due to atrial fibrillation, especially that associated with aging

Do patients with congenital heart disease have the same, higher, or lower risk for coronary artery disease as they age into adulthood?

Over 500,000 incident or recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE) events occur annually in the US. Almost one-quarter of acute pulmonary embolism patients suffer sudden death. To improve survival, the occurrence of VTE must be reduced. However, the incidence of VTE has increased over the last 30 years. Moreover, near universal prophylaxis of patients hospitalized for surgery or for medical illness has not reduced hospitalization-associated... more »

How to manage CVD risk factors in young adults

Current approaches to guiding use of clinical primary prevention interventions, e.g., statins and aspirin, are based on treating patients who exceed a specific risk threshold. The performance of risk estimation is good, but not outstanding, and results from clinical and population studies continue to support the value of new biomarkers. Given the widespread use of preventive therapies, the lack of untreated cohorts is... more »

An individual metric to inform about the additive and not individual impact of comorbidities on critical illness and peri-operative mortality. For instance, we know the impact of COPD or MI or CKD on mortality after hemicolectomy, but not necessarily the additive impact of all three.

Much of the hopes for precision medicine (as outlined Dr. Dr. Collins) are based on deriving large amounts of genomic, proteomic, epigenomic and metabolomic data on large cohorts of patients. It will take decades to build these cohorts and even more time to analyze them and derive specific conclusions on how these will help individualize treatments.

However, there is a pressing need for how to individualize contemporary... more »

Identifying breast cancer survivors at high risk for CV morbidity and mortality to allow targeting of management strategies to reduce CV events and thereby improve overall cancer-related survival.

What is an appropriate risk score for intervention in valvular heart disease?