Addressing the unmet needs of measuring vascular ageing in clinical practice-European cooperation in science and technology action VascAgeNet

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, regardless of gender, ethnicity or income. Evidence that vascular age, as opposed to chronological age, is better related to the prognosis of CVD is convincing. Despite recent technological advances for the measurement of vascular ageing, unmet needs remain which currently limit the assessment of vascular ageing in routine clinical practice. These unmet needs include: (1) lack of easy-to-use, affordable techniques/devices, (2) insufficient validation in clinical settings, (3) fragmentation of expertise in few research laboratories globally, and (4) lack of investigator/research driven intervention studies and head-to-head comparisons between different measurement techniques. This paper summarises how a recently awarded European COoperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action on Vascular Ageing (VascAgeNet) will address these unmet needs. The broad aim of the COST Action VascAgeNet is to establish a network which will work to refine, harmonize and promote the use of vascular ageing biomarkers, in order to improve clinical practice and to reduce the burden of CVD globally.