Fig. (2).

Concept of pathological studies and longitudinal translational biobank studies with the atherosclerotic plaque as a starting point. In blue, the design of postmortem and histopathological studies allowing crossectional research to investigate the association of plaque type with the initial event. In green the overlap between crossectional and prospective biobank stusdies. In yellow the unique Athero-Express study with a longitudinal design, with the ability to investigate the association of local plaque characteristics with systemic cardiovascular outcome.