Design and Rationale of the ERA-CVD Consortium PREMED-CAD-Precision Medicine in Coronary Artery Disease

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) comprise 45% of all deaths in Europe and causes 3.9 million deaths annually. Coronary artery disease (CAD) which includes myocardial infarction (MI) represents the most common form of CVD. A relevant proportion of MI cases seems preventable since reports claim that up to two-thirds of these patients exhibit symptoms suggestive for MI within 12 months prior to the acute MI event. An early identification of these at-risk subjects is necessary to manage an early and efficient treatment during the ischemic phase. The aim of the PRecision MEDicine in Coronary Artery Disease (PREMED-CAD) consortium is to apply a system medicine approach towards studying and identifying an ischemia specific 'biomarker signature' that improves the identification of individuals 'at-risk' for acute MI. The consortium will take an interdisciplinary and translational approach integrating knowledge from CAD epidemiology, imaging, bioinformatics, statistics and molecular biology, as well as existing phenotypic, blood-based and clinical biomarker data of distinct CAD and subclinical MI phenotypes. This biomarker signature will be validated through atherosclerosis-prone mouse models and human cohorts. The validated signature will be translated in a real-world clinical setting using an ongoing clinical trial comprising patients with subclinical ischemia. The aim of the knowledge obtained from this project is to aid in early MI detection and reduce the mortality and morbidity rate in these at-risk MI individuals.