Current State of Cardiovascular Research in Korea.

Cardiovascular diseases have shown a continuous increase in Korea over the past decade and became the second most common cause of mortality in Korea. Although the number and the amount of total grants for cardiovascular research have increased in Korea, the proportion of the number of grants and total amount allocated for the cardiac/cardiovascular field to all health and medical research fields has not changed much over this period. In addition, the publications related to clinical research have substantially increased in Korea along with the number of nation-wide registries for cardiovascular diseases, but basic and translational research did not show significant growth, requiring new measures to promote basic and translational cardiovascular research in Korea.