LAUSR

See related article, pp 1193–1200 > It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has. > > —Hippocrates (c. 460 BC–c. 370 BC) There is a pressing need to personalize cardiovascular disease prevention and nowhere more so than in treating hypertension.1 Hypertension should no longer be treated as an individual disease, but in the context of a patient’s total cardiovascular risk; new guidelines2 may lead to half of the American population being considered for drug therapy to lower blood pressure, but if there were ways to identify those who would benefit; this number might be reduced greatly with considerable cost savings. One approach would be to look for evidence of target organ damage and use this as an additional reason for starting treatment. The prognostic impact of regressing vascular structural alterations for several cardiovascular and metabolic diseases is a clinical priority. Understanding the significance of the microcirculation and how even small architectural changes can impact on normal physiological processes underlies the importance of this system as a potential tool …