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A major goal of precision medicine is to improve disease prevention and therapy by using big data provided by genomic technology and electronic health records. In a new study, assessment of a patient population without a history of cardiac disease revealed that genetic variants putatively associated with a risk of sudden death were not linked with arrhythmia phenotypes.
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) key opinion leaders, health ministers, clinicians, and industry representatives gathered in Ethiopia in February 2015. The question: how to eradicate RHD in Africa. The response: the Addis Ababa communiqué, a practical document outlining seven major barriers to RHD control in Africa and seven strategies to address them.
Heart failure (HF) is a global epidemic affecting >37.7 million individuals globally. HF is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, and confers a substantial burden on the health-care system. In this Review, Ziaeian and Fonarow summarize the latest epidemiological data on HF in both developed and developing countries, and provide an overview of associated risk factors and aetiologies contributing to the disease burden.
A large number of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) events originate from plaques with an intact fibrous cap (IFC). In this Review, Kanwar et al. provide an overview of the latest advances in our understanding of plaque morphology in ACS with IFC, reviewing contemporary data from multimodality imaging. They also discuss whether the use of such imaging might result in more effective management of patients with ACS.
Advanced noninvasive imaging techniques add diagnostic and prognostic value in patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome, complementing patient history, electrocardiogram, and cardiac biomarkers for timely identification or ruling out of acute coronary syndrome. In this Review, Garg and colleagues summarize the current guidelines and clinical use of the most common noninvasive imaging techniques, and provide an update on developments in noninvasive imaging.
In this Review, Daniel Mark examines the use of health-related quality of life (QOL) as an outcome measure in clinical cardiovascular research. The main concepts, assumptions, tools, and methods used to assess QOL are discussed. Applied research into QOL outcomes in coronary artery disease, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation are also summarized, with an emphasis on experience from large, randomized clinical trials.
Glutathione is considered the major natural antioxidant, protecting cells from oxidative stress. Patel and colleagues used plasma levels of the aminothiols cystine and glutathione to quantify oxidative stress in patients with coronary artery disease, and show that the cystine/glutathione ratio is associated with increased mortality. Is this a new approach for clinical risk stratification?
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is common in patients with severe aortic stenosis undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), but its clinical relevance is controversial. In this Review, Danson et al. summarize the methods of assessing CAD in TAVI populations, and the data on the safety and efficacy of percutaneous coronary intervention in patients undergoing TAVI.