Handbook of Preventive Cardiology 2020

Although Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) mortality in several western countries has declined over the last four decades, CVD remains the leading cause of death worldwide. While there has been dramatic improvement in treatment choices and refinement in treatment strategies (e.g, preventive medications, coordinated emergency care, fast track percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and stroke in tertiary centers, more effective practice guidelines, etc.), the incidence of CVD, its associated cost of treatment and mortality rate has paradoxically increased among South, Southeast and East Asian countries. Unfortunately, most physicians are trained to treat manifest disease rather than prevent it in the first instance. Given the array of scientific discoveries and effective tools at our disposal, it is time to shift the paradigm from intervention to prevention. It is time to embrace and execute on the notion of prevention of CVD pragmatically and on large scale.
This book represents our effort to provide the experience and practical knowledge of cardiovascular disease prevention from Western centers (Oregon Health & Science University, Wake Forest University, University of Leuven) and Eastern centers (Siriraj School of Medicine, Bangkok Heart Hospital (BHT), Bangkok Health Research Center (BHRC), Bangkok Dusit Medical Service (BDMS). Our goal in putting this practical guide together is to facilitate the expansion and optimization of effective preventive cardiology services in southeast Asia. We would like to sincerely thank the BHRC, BDMS for the generous sponsorship of the publication of the first 2,000 volumes of this book and its translation to Thai language for academic use in the future.
The readers of this book will be able to take knowledge learned from individual application to the hospital practice and the community level. This book also provides the conceptual framework for future education, training and paves a way forward to professional certification as well. Trying to keep this book concise, we do not provide an exhaustive review of all areas related to cardiovascular disease prevention. However, the enthusiastic readers will gain sufficient ideas on their way to develop the skill set for providing preventive cardiology services to our citizens.