title: [New targets for prevention: identification of specific disease mechanisms].
abstract: Current therapeutic strategies have proven to be remarkably effective in correcting known cardiovascular risk factors but coronary events still occur in a significant number of patients. New therapeutic targets should be pursued in order to overcome traditional research methodology, which is focused on the reduction of the mean values. Novel clinical approaches should be based on the analysis of the outliers rather than focusing only on the distribution of the mean values. In this subset of patients that deviate most from the average, the identification of peculiar features is easier and may subsequently help to detect the same, but less marked, characteristics in the general patient population. An individually tailored therapy based on the underlying etiologic factors will be more effective than the present optimal treatment. The study of these outliers may lead to identify new cardiovascular risk factors and new therapeutic targets for future pharmacological research.
authors.affiliation: Heart Care Foundation, Firenze. amaseri@heartcarefound.org
authors.forename: Attilio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Maseri
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans