Review Articles in 2020

In this Review, Bossone and Eagle discuss the epidemiology, management and outcomes of the most common aortic diseases: aortic aneurysms and acute aortic syndromes, including aortic dissection.

In this Review, Entcheva and Kay discuss a decade of important developments and applications of optogenetics to the heart, focusing on near-term and longer-term clinical translation of this technology in cardiology.

In this Review, Mayr and colleagues describe the growing number of omic techniques, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, outline network theory, and highlight exemplars of novel approaches that combine gene regulatory and co-expression networks, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics and phenomics with informatics techniques to provide new insights into cardiovascular disease.

In this Review, Padmanabhan and Dominiczak discuss how genomics has transformed our understanding of blood pressure regulation and hypertension, summarizing the current knowledge of blood pressure genomics and highlighting the opportunities and challenges for drug repurposing and pharmacogenomics for the treatment of hypertension.

This Review summarizes the latest evidence indicating that platelet and endothelial dysfunction are essential components of COVID-19 pathology, describes the potential mechanisms underlying the contribution of cardiovascular risk factors to the most severe outcomes in COVID-19, and highlights the roles of coagulopathy, thrombocytopathy and endotheliopathy in COVID-19 pathogenesis.

In this Review, Bax and colleagues summarize the effects of obesity and diabetes on myocardial structure and function and evaluate the role of multimodality cardiac imaging to elucidate the pathophysiology of myocardial dysfunction, prognosticate long-term clinical outcomes and potentially guide treatment strategies.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the major factors contributing to the reduced life expectancy of patients with severe mental illness. In this Review, Nielsen and colleagues discuss the current knowledge of risk factors, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of cardiovascular disease in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Effective stroke prevention with oral anticoagulation is a cornerstone of the management of patients with atrial fibrillation. Caution is required in patients with atrial fibrillation at high risk of stroke and bleeding. In this Review, Lip and colleague discuss strategies for reducing the risk of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation.

In this Review, Stone and colleagues compare the outcomes after complete or incomplete revascularization with PCI or CABG surgery in patients with multivessel disease and stable ischaemic heart disease, NSTE-ACS or STEMI, with or without cardiogenic shock.

Catheter ablation is an important rhythm-control strategy for atrial fibrillation (AF). In this Review, Kalman and colleagues discuss the recommended and evolving indications for catheter ablation of AF, describing the different ablation techniques and highlighting the latest advances in technology that aim to improve its safety and efficacy.

In this Review, Tschöpe and colleagues summarize and evaluate the available evidence on the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of myocarditis and inflammatory cardiomyopathy, with special focus on virus-induced and virus-associated myocarditis. The authors also identify knowledge gaps, appraise available experimental models and propose future directions for the field.

In this Review, Lucia and colleagues discuss the epidemiological evidence on the benefits of major lifestyle interventions in the prevention and adjuvant treatment of hypertension, including regular physical exercise, body weight management, healthy diet, adequate sleep patterns, circadian entrainment and stress management. The authors also describe the main physiological mechanisms underlying these benefits.

Advances in cardiovascular monitoring technologies have resulted in an influx of consumer-targeted wearable sensors that have the potential to detect numerous heart conditions. In this Review, Krittanawong and colleagues describe processes involved in biosignal acquisition and analysis of cardiovascular monitors, as well as their associated ethical, regulatory and legal challenges.

Chronic liver disease can promote the development of numerous cardiac disorders and circulatory complications. In this Review, Pacher and colleagues describe some of the extrahepatic complications of chronic liver disease and their shared pathophysiological mechanisms, including inflammation and oxidative stress.

In this Review, Tyrrell and Goldstein discuss vascular intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms of how ageing promotes atherosclerosis, including changes in myeloid cells, mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired mitophagy and elevated IL-6 levels. They propose future steps for research and potential therapeutic approaches for age-related atherosclerosis.

Next-generation tissue-engineered heart valves (TEHVs) are a promising therapeutic option for patients with valvular heart disease. In this Review, Emmert and colleagues discuss the current heart valve replacement options, describe the design of TEHVs and summarize the data from preclinical and clinical studies on the use of TEHVs.

Current estimates of the prevalence of hypertrophic, dilated and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathies are probably conservative because of the overlapping phenotypes, incomplete and age-related expression, and variable penetrance of these conditions. In this Review, McKenna and Judge discuss the clinical and genetic diagnosis of the inherited cardiomyopathies, with the aim of better defining the epidemiology of these diseases.

The design and limited life of batteries curtails the use of many cardiovascular electronic devices (CEDs). In this Review, Li and colleagues discuss the use of self-powered technology that harvests energy from the body and its ambient environment to power implantable and wearable CEDs.

Patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at high risk of perioperative cardiovascular complications related to non-cardiac surgery. In this Review, Mehran and colleagues summarize trial data and guideline recommendations on preoperative risk stratification and periprocedural management of patients with CAD undergoing non-cardiac surgery.

The presence of cardiovascular comorbidities is linked with worse outcomes in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and COVID-19 can induce cardiovascular damage. In this Review, Wu and colleagues summarize the latest mechanistic and clinical studies that contribute to our current understanding of COVID-19-related cardiovascular disease.