CVD Diagnostics Research Question

1) There are multiple factors to be considered when assessing an individual's cardiovascular disease risk including: family history, lifestyle (i.e. diet, exercise regularity, smoking, etc), risk factors (i.e. BMI, diabetes, etc), lipid panels (total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, triglycerides), and other indicators (i.e. Homocystein, apoE, Cyp2C19, CRP, Fibronogen, NT-proBNP, Hemoglobin A1c, etc). How do you synthesize the information gathered from all of these factors to make a recommendation to your patient? Which factors do you weight higher if contradictory information (normal or high HDL-C, but family history of coronary heart disease) is provided? 2) Whose recommendation do you follow in terms of the diagnostic protocols used in your office? If there was an FDA-approved assay that could accurately provide a broad assessment of cardiovascular health, what verifications do you need to make prior to ordering such a test for your patients? 3) How do you discover new diagnostic tools/new standards of care? Do you find out about advances in diagnosis protocols by attending conferences and/or reading medical journals?
Source: CardiologyNetwork.com - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: forums