The design and rationale of the Beijing Vascular Disease Patients Evaluation Study (BEST study)

AIMS: Arteriosclerosis and arterial stiffness increasing are the basic pathophysiological changes of vascular-related diseases, and also the predictor factors of future cardiovascular events. Plasma biomarkers such as glucose, lipids, Homocysteine (Hcy), N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) have been shown to be involved the development of arteriosclerosis. The present study is a prospective observational and follow-up study of the characteristics of subclinical vascular disease detected by non-invasive methods that can predict progression of clinical overt vascular events in a Chinese population. METHODS: The study including both genders with age of 45 years to 75 years was designed as observational research by questionnaires and 3-year follow-up with vascular functional and structural parameters evaluation without any interventions. Questionnaire was designed to survey the lifestyle, personal history, family history of the study population. Arterial function indexes such as pulse wave velocity, cardio-ankle vascular index, flow mediated vascular dilation, ankle brachial index, carotid intima-media thickness, and plasma biomarkers such as glucose, lipids, Hcy, NT-pro BNP, Glycosylated hemoglobin, insulin resistance index, uric acid are collected. The outcome is the composite of acute myocardial infarction or coronary reperfusion therapy or stroke or peripheral vascular diseases. CONCLUSIONS: 2858 subjects were enrolled into our present study at baseline, and this present study will provide important information on the metabolic related traditional and new risk factors, establish a new vascular disease early detection system and scoring systems based on comprehensive vascular disease risk factors and vascular function and structure evaluation indexes.