This course is designed to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the causes of vascular disease and provide an insight into the type of investigations conducted to help doctors decide how best to manage patients.

Weekly lectures, labs and tutorials.

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None

Written exam 3 hours.

To provide the students with an in-depth knowledge of the causes of vascular disease ranging from well-established mechanisms to newer insights, as well as providing them with an insight into the type of investigations conducted to help doctors decide how best to mange patients.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Critically discuss the epidemiology of CV disease including an insight into temporal changes with reference to the primary literature.

■ Demonstrate a critical and in-depth knowledge of the role of established risk factors for heart disease and stroke, and how we use such markers to identify individuals at elevated risk of vascular disease.

■ Discuss critically and in-depth novel risk factors for heart disease and stroke to include pathways such as inflammation, obesity, oxidative stress, haemostasis and clotting, steroid metabolism, etc.

■ Critically discuss the common tests performed in cardiology and stroke medicine to identify sub-clinical disease or to help stratify risk and thus dictate management of patients.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.