Established in 2014, the GENetIcs of sUbSequent CHD consortium is an international collaboration of investigators seeking to understand the genetic and non-genetic drivers of subsequent or recurrent events in those who have established coronary heart disease (CHD).
All studies include patients with CHD (either stable disease or acute coronary syndromes) who have had blood or tissue samples stored for analysis and have then been prospectively followed for subsequent events such as death or myocardial infarction.
Many of these studies have been created by investigators seeking to identify bio-markers or genetic variations that confer risk of subsequent or recurrent events. Others are randomized clinical trials or population studies created for other purposes but with stored samples and prospective follow up for patients with CHD.
Individually many studies are relatively small and although they can yield some insights, they often fail to show effects due to a lack of statistical power. Importantly negative findings are hard to interpret. Collectively, however, these studies are powerful enough to answer many important questions and offer opportunities to replicate or validate novel findings.
To date 58 cohorts are participating in the consortium, from 18 countries, including over 260,000 patients, making this the largest effort of its kind in studying determinants of risk for subsequent CHD events