German Atherosclerosis Society - to what end?
M. Hanefeld and H. Hahmann
Medical disciplines need their specialist societies. Many people are very familiar with the rapid development in terms of membership and congress activity, for example of the German Cardiac Society. But what do smaller, interdisciplinary, cross-linking societies such as the German Society for Arteriosclerosis Research (DGAF) achieve against such a background?
It is certainly not intended to establish a specialist in arteriosclerotic diseases. The founders of the DGAF, the internist Werner H. Hauss, Münster, and the physiologist Eberhard Betz, Tübingen, had in mind the expertise of theoretical disciplines such as pathological anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and meanwhile molecular biology and cell biology with the problems of the clinicians from the areas of cardiology, angiology, hemostasiology, laboratory medicine and certainly also neurologists. All of these specialist areas deal in part with one of the most important, if not the most important group of diseases in industrialized countries, arteriosclerosis. Since the interests of cardiovascular researchers up to then focused more on the pathophysiological basis in addition to the clinical and therapeutic approaches, the foundation of the DGAF closed the gap to causal pathogenesis and its preventive implications.
Under these conditions the amazing thing happened that a young, non-hierarchically structured society, which deals with very special topics, has acquired a not inconsiderable scientific importance today. This can be seen, among other things, from the fact that an annual conference has been established under seminar conditions in the guest house of the University of Tübingen in Blaubeuren, at which 100 to 130 original contributions are presented at a high level by around 250 participants. This publication activity shows a high research potential of the society, which is young in two senses: 80% of its members are under 40 years of age, their calendar age is just twelve years. In this short time she has made a significant contribution to catching up on the lag in experimental arteriosclerosis research in Germany compared to the USA, England and others and to approaching the old glory with numerous innovative contributions, as far as this is possible today under the changed conditions of a rapidly growing research area. Much of the experimental know-how and new findings in this area have been incorporated into the work of large specialist societies and vice versa - to a large extent also in personal union.
The DGAF also forms the German section of the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS), whose activities include the development of guidelines for cardiovascular prevention. This task is made more difficult by the coexistence of several current international guidelines and by the different regional priorities - viewed worldwide. The task for the national sections of the IAS is therefore to develop guidelines adapted to regional needs. However, this must not lead to an expansion of the long list of guidelines circulating in Germany. The implementation of prevention goals can only be promoted by bringing together and updating the recommendations of all national societies on cardiovascular prevention as far as possible. The DGAF will be involved in fulfilling the mandate of the IAS.
At this point, too, the meaningfulness of a society can be proven that has taken up the fight against arteriosclerotic diseases: The knowledge of atherogenesis and the manifestations of diseases, which is growing exponentially from all directions, is difficult to survey, even more difficult to interpret and apparently hardly any translate more into practical therapy, be it from a health economic perspective or due to a lack of consensus. All too often under this pretext today, despite the high specificity and considerable economic expense of our health system, the medical secondary prophylaxis of coronary heart disease and other cardiovascular arteriosclerosis diseases based on a reliable level of knowledge is omitted.
Communicating the state of arteriosclerosis research to clinicians using an interdisciplinary approach, helping to distinguish between experimental therapeutic approaches on the one hand and evidence-based therapeutic duties on the other, and thus bridging the gap between the state of knowledge and practical therapy, will be an important future task for which the German Society for Arteriosclerosis research can contribute.
(As of 2001)