ABSTRACT
Cardiovascular (CV) diseases are the most important cause of death in the Western world and are responsible for a large proportion of the overall mortality and morbidity currently observed in the population of the developed countries (1,2). For many patients, the first clinical manifestation is a potentially catastrophic event, such as stroke, myocardial infarction, or sudden death, and, among the 50-year adults enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study, the lifetime risk for developing symptomatic disease was 52% in men and 39% in women (3). Moreover, despite the advancement in the knowledge of the epidemiology and prevention of clinical atherosclerosis, the burden of CV disease remains very high and should increase within the next 20 years (4). Accordingly, CV prevention, that is, preventing or delaying clinical disease among asymptomatic and already exposed individuals, remains an issue of major public health interest.
