[CRITERIA FOR THE FORMATION OF PATIENTS' AGE GROUPS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH]

At present, a variety of methods for age group formation and classification of clinical and morphological manifestations of diseases and their complications are available for the analysis of strategies of the choice of therapy and evaluation of its efficiency. Analysis of the results of diagnostic studies and the choice of therapeutic modalities need to be based on an individual approach to patients of different age groups. Age-related morphological, functional and histochemical changes responsible for combined normal and pathological alterations in the tissues, organs and their systems are associated with mild, moderate and severe clinical symptoms or their absence; they can be regarded as reflecting peculiarities of the development of the organism and subsequent tanatogenesis. Because age-specific changes are known to be risk factors of cardiovascular pathology, it suggests the necessity of more detailed objectivization and substantiation of division of such patients into age groups taking account of specific morphological and functional changes in the heart anatomical structures.