Introduction

Advances in Cardiovascular Disease: Where We've Been—Where We're Going

Early in this century, doctors had few tools to help them diagnose or treat diseases, and they had limited understanding of cardiovascular illness. Heart surgery was nearly inconceivable.

Decades later, the prognosis for someone stricken with cardiovascular disease was not much brighter. "In 1948 a heart attack signaled the end of an active life. One-third of the patients who reached the hospital died within weeks, and surviving patients still faced a long ordeal," said Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health. "Virtually the only treatments available were painkillers and complete bed rest. Now most patients return to normal activities within weeks of a heart attack."

Today, mortality due to heart disease is declining, open-heart surgery is commonplace, and people have the information they need to make changes in their lives that alleviate or even prevent cardiovascular illness.

Dramatic changes have taken place in the past 50 years, fueled by advances in diagnosis and medical technology, as well as by knowledge gained from public health studies and research in medical genetics. However, the incidence of cardiovascular disease is still increasing, and the fight against it goes on. The future may hold new, very different ways to understand and treat cardiovascular disease.