COHORT PROFILE Cohort Profile: The Corogene study

Coronary artery disease (CAD) risk factor profiles change over time. The death rate from coronary disease has been decreasing mainly due to changes in levels of risk factors, and improvement in CAD treatments. However, there are risk factors, whose prevalence is increasing, such as diabetes and obesity. When the risk factor profile changes, we can assume that gene profiles and epigenetics also change. This has not been studied widely. The Corogene study was designed as a large cohort to study mainly CAD, but also other related heart diseases such as heart failure and aortic valve disease. We selected the patients from the CAD point of view, and decided to include over 5000 consecutive patients assigned for coronary angiogram. In Finland, coronary angiogram is performed to practically all patients assigned for invasive heart examination. Despite technical developments in diagnostics, coronary angiogram is still the gold standard for evaluating coronaries. The purpose of this study is to follow contemporary trends in coronary heart disease, and related heart disease risk factors, genetics and epigenetics by collecting cohorts referred to heart examination. New cohorts will be collected at 5-year intervals in order to see trends in CAD, its risk factors and epigenetics.