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Volume 6 Issue 6, June 2009

Editorial

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Research Highlight

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News & Views

  • Dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel is effective in limiting adverse coronary thromboischemic events in most patients undergoing coronary stenting. However, platelet reactivity to clopidogrel is variable and stent thrombosis can occur suddenly and unexpectedly in up to 3% of patients. Is responsiveness to clopidogrel an indicator of risk of post-treatment thromboischemic events?

    • Meinrad Gawaz
    • Tobias Geisler
    News & Views
  • Proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) can alter the pharmacodynamic profile of clopidogrel and reduce its platelet-inhibitory effects. Ho and colleagues have reported that concurrent use of PPIs and clopidogrel leads to in an increase in adverse cardiovascular outcomes. In this article we discuss the clinical implications of the interaction between these two drugs.

    • José Luis Ferreiro
    • Dominick J. Angiolillo
    News & Views
  • The novel risk score for new-onset atrial fibrillation proposed by Schnabel et al. is based on readily identifiable risk factors and provides an excellent 'first draft' to focus primary prevention and halt the pandemic spread of this arrhythmia and its potentially lethal consequences. The risk score does, however, require further validation and sophistication with novel imaging techniques before it can be applied in clinical practice.

    • Ron Pisters
    • Harry J. Crijns
    News & Views
  • There is notable variation in incidence, presentation, risk factors, and prognosis for strokes occurring in children. At present, there is no stroke classification system specifically tailored to the multiple risk factors and etiologies of pediatric stroke. The study by the International Pediatric Stroke Study investigators on predictors of cerebral arteriopathy in children with arterial ischemic stroke deserves special attention in planning secondary stroke prevention strategies in this population of patients.

    • Jose Biller
    News & Views
  • Should patients with high-risk coronary artery disease be treated with CABG or receive drug-eluting stents? The SYNTAX trial aimed to define the optimal revascularization strategy for patients with previously untreated three-vessel and/or left main coronary artery disease.

    • Giuseppe Tarantini
    News & Views
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Review Article

  • In this timely Review, Drs Rocha and Libby discuss the commonalities in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis and obesity, with a particular focus on inflammation—an important aspect of both diseases. The authors also examine the clinical implications of the mechanistic links between the two conditions.

    • Viviane Z. Rocha
    • Peter Libby
    Review Article
  • Pathways associated with inflammation are thought to account for increased vascular risk in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. This Review summarizes key epidemiologic, physiologic and model data that implicate involvement of tumor necrosis factor, a pivotal cytokine in the inflammatory cascade, in atherosclerosis.

    • Gayle E. McKellar
    • David W. McCarey
    • Iain B. McInnes
    Review Article
  • The important functional roles of non-protein-coding RNA have come to light since the discovery of the enzymatic activity of RNA in the mid 1980s. This Review discusses what is currently known about the role of a class of non-protein-coding RNA called microRNAs in the heart. Since the first report on this topic was published in 2005, intense research has been conducted to elucidate how microRNAs are involved in cardiovascular physiology and pathology.

    • Michael V. G. Latronico
    • Gianluigi Condorelli
    Review Article
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Case Study

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Opinion

  • Increases in the doses of ionizing radiation to Western populations have largely been driven by growth in the use of medical imaging tests, such as invasive coronary angiography and cardiovascular CT. Here, Dr. Einstein discusses the association between radiation dose and cancer risk, which has been the source of some controversy, and highlights the clinical implications of radiation exposure from imaging tests.

    • Andrew J. Einstein
    Opinion
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