PREFACE

The present issue of Seminars in Vascular Medicine focuses on the relationship between clinical atherosclerotic/thrombotic manifestations, laboratory features, and phenotypes of familiar hypercholesterolemia and the molecular defects of the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDL-receptor) gene. The availability of comprehensive knowledge, unraveling clinical and basic research, and creative collaborations in scientific freedom very surely are the prerequisites for original medical science, which should be unified and brought together by the modern scientific approaches and technical advances as well as by the concerted international actions of attentive physicians and basic researchers. This can only be achieved by using modern documentation tools and rapid communication channels in such a way that they definitely will lead to better insights and simplified concepts on familiar hypercholesterolemia to gain improved and novel abilities in solving the predictable and unpredictable atherothrombotic manifestations of the mutant LDL-receptor genes and proteins for the improvement of the health of affected individuals within the context of proper prospective management studies.

I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Joep Defesche and his team for their productive cooperation and hard work in assembling and editing this very interesting issue on clinical manifestations, laboratory diagnosis, and molecular biology of familial hypercholesterolemia. I particularly wish to express my sincere thanks to all authors for their most interesting and expert review articles. This issue was designed by the Guest Editor and the Editor in Chief of Seminars in Vascular Medicineto serve as a valuable overview for basic scientists and medical doctors and as a sound starting point for a new orientation on the clinical manifestations, on the laboratory phenotypes, and on the interactions between environment, including lifestyle, food, and vascular risk factor, and the various mutants of LDL-receptor gene, resulting in proper and adequate management of individuals with heterozygous and homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia.