The initial objective of the EPIC-Heart project is to establish the case-cohort study of incident coronary disease within the EPIC cohort. In order to achieve this, EPIC-Heart will need:

• to ascertain potential cases of coronary heart disease described within the existing EPIC databases in order to obtain a provisional ‘case’ group;
• to verify the diagnosis of incident coronary heart disease in all potential cases;
• to identify a strategy for control selection in order to find an optimal group of CHD-free referents from the InterAct control group for comparison with verified cases; and
• to retrieve plasma, serum, erythrocyte and buffy coat samples from the EPIC central biorepository at IARC (or local Scandinavian stores) for identified cases.