ABSTRACT
Cardiovascular toxicity is virtually associated, directly or indirectly, with all chem-
icals and drugs that cause deteriorating effects in mammalian system. However,
cardiovascular toxicology has not been fully developed until recently. The signifi-
cance of cardiovascular toxicity in environmental health, clinical practice, and drug
discovery and development had been underestimated. There were not enough clinical
and environmental studies that addressed the issue of cardiovascular toxicity, and
drug discovery and development had largely ignored the concern of cardiovascular
toxicity. However, over the past decade, cardiovascular toxicity has become a
growing concern of clinical practice, environmental health, and drug discovery and
development. There are several review articles that have provided some current
knowledge of cardiovascular toxicology (1-4). In this book, advances in different
aspects of cardiovascular toxicology are presented in respective chapters. In this
chapter, a general view of new understanding of cardiovascular toxicology will be
discussed with a focus on basic concepts and critical areas that significantly affect the
advances in cardiovascular toxicology.
