Cardiovascular genomics: outcomes and implications.

The application of genomics technology to clinical cardiovascular research is producing fundamentally new insights concerning the etiology of cardiovascular disease phenotypes. Recent genome-wide association studies demonstrate clear associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms and important cardiovascular phenotypes. However, risk alleles for the single nucleotide polymorphisms in question do not explain a sufficient portion of individual risk to be useful for screening purposes. Therefore, clinicians should continue to make use of family history to augment risk stratification and emphasize established forms of prevention for their patients with, or at risk for, cardiovascular disease.