<International Circulation>: There is growing evidence that inflammation is a major risk factor for heart disease， and needs to be taken into account in the management of heart failure and other heart diseases. Are these markers mostly inflammatory in nature?

    Dr Liu: The biomarkers fall into five different categories and inflammation is one of them. Another group is related to angiogenesis - whether blood vessels are forming appropriately or not. Another marker is cell death and troponin is one of these. There are the cell stress markers which include newer ones like ST2 but of course BNP is a classic reflection of cell stress. Then there are the markers that reflect the fibrosis/scarring process in the heart. I think in the future we will see a panel of novel markers that would be indicators for each one of these processes giving the physician a better sense of where the patient is in the spectrum of developing heart failure and being able to prevent it appropriately.