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Volume 11 Issue 10, October 2014

Cover image supplied by Farhood Saremi and Michael Fong, from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, and Jagat Narula, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. This computed tomography image shows the rare finding of a pseudoaneurysm in the ascending aorta, caused by a leak at the outflow graft of a left ventricular assist device. The device was implanted in the patient as a bridge to heart transplantation. No evidence of mycotic infection was found after the image was taken.

Research Highlight

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Correction

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Research Highlight

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News & Views

  • The association between HDL cholesterol and cardiovascular events, and the potential antiatherogenic effects of HDL particles, are altered in patients with established coronary heart disease. HDL particle composition has, therefore, gained attention after trials of therapies to increase HDL-cholesterol levels did not reduce the risk of an adverse cardiovascular event.

    • Ulf Landmesser
    News & Views
  • The Hispanic population will grow to represent nearly one-third of residents in the USA by mid-century. A new AHA Science Advisory paper provides an overview of current evidence on cardiovascular disease in this population, including prevailing risk factors and specific clinical approaches for treatment, and predicts what insights future research might reveal.

    • Robert C. Kaplan
    News & Views
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Review Article

  • Statins and other drugs are widely used to lower the LDL-cholesterol level, which has been shown to prevent cardiovascular events. In this Review, Dadu and Ballantyne review the latest evidence on a novel class of LDL-lowering agents: proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors. In particular, monoclonal antibodies against PCSK9 have proven efficacious and safe in phase I–III clinical trials.

    • Razvan T. Dadu
    • Christie M. Ballantyne
    Review Article
  • Early detection of signs of heart failure can allow fast therapeutic intervention, potentially improving a patient's prognosis and avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations. Implantable monitoring devices have been suggested as useful tools in detecting early changes in cardiac parameters, but clinical trials aimed at studying their efficacy and safety have unique problems. In this Review, Abraham et al. identify the major hurdles in trials of implantable monitoring devices, and discuss the approaches used to overcome the challenges arising during trial design.

    • William T. Abraham
    • Wendy G. Stough
    • Faiez Zannad
    Review Article
  • Cardiac rehabilitation participation reduces mortality and rehospitalization of patients with cardiovascular disease, but this cost-effective treatment programme is still underused worldwide. In this Review, Turk-Adawi and colleagues describe the global availability of cardiac rehabilitation and highlight strategies that might increase its use, particularly in low and middle-income countries.

    • Karam Turk-Adawi
    • Nizal Sarrafzadegan
    • Sherry L. Grace
    Review Article
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Consensus Statement

  • East Asian patients are known to have differing risks of thrombophilia and bleeding compared with white patients, but few have been included in phase III trials of P2Y12inhibitors. Therefore, the World Heart Federation has produced this evidence-based review and expert consensus statement to determine the antiplatelet treatment strategies that are most appropriate for East Asian patients with acute coronary syndrome or undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention.

    • Glenn N. Levine
    • Young-Hoon Jeong
    • Sidney C. Smith Jr
    Consensus Statement
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Opinion

  • Mutations in theSCN5A gene, which encodes the cardiac sodium channel, are well known to cause gain or loss of channel function and, consequently, various cardiac arrhythmias. However, greater phenotypic variability exists than can be ascribed directly to mutation-dependent changes in channel biophysical properties. In this Perspectives article, Liu et al. propose that additional intrinsic and extrinsic modifiers of channel behaviour might help to explain this variability and to improve genotype–phenotype correlations.

    • Man Liu
    • Kai-Chien Yang
    • Samuel C. Dudley Jr
    Opinion
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Correspondence

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