SYMPOSIUM ON CORONARY HEART DISEASE

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Abstract
The role of heredity in the pathogenesis of coronary heart disease has not yet been adequately appreciated or appraised. Its percentage of responsibility has not even been roughly estimated, although every practicing physician dealing with patients showing coronary heart disease has long known that there is an important genetic background, especially in the case of serious coronary atherosclerosis in youth. Analysis of large groups of patients bears this out. Despite the difficulty of the task there are four measures that should be undertaken more actively. Firstly, the practicing physician should determine with more care than he has in the past the prevalence of evidence of coronary heart disease in the ancestry and immediate relatives of his patient with the disease. Secondly, autopsies should be requested by the families themselves, as well as by their physicians, to determine with greater accuracy the presence or absence of important diseases, such as a high degree of atherosclerosis, for the sake of future generations. Thirdly, when it is evident that the young males of any family are candidates for the disease, as evidenced by the family history and by autopsy, efforts should be made to protect them by a sensible program immediately and by more specific, future measures after they have been ascertained. Finally, research by human geneticists, much neglected in the past, is especially important in gaining further knowledge of this disease.

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