Imaging and prevention.

Abstract

Prevention is better than cure—so the saying goes that is as important for cardiology as for everyday life. We are therefore proud to present an issue of the European Heat Journal on this topic. Indeed, we have taken this matter seriously in the past, for instance by publishing guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice,1 on the management of dyslipidaemias,2 and on arterial hypertension,3 on diabetes, pre-diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.4 In this issue, we report on the most recent developments of preventive cardiology in 2014 as well as on the progress made in imaging, a speciality that is equally as important for prevention as for any other specialty of cardiology. ‘ The year in cardiology 2014: imaging ’ is a comprehensive summary by several experts in the field such as Oliver Gaemperli, Nina Ajmone Marsan, Victoria Delgado, and Jeroen J. Bax from Zurich and Leiden, respectively.5 Indeed, in 2014, many articles were published on the use of non-invasive cardiovascular imaging, including echocardiography, nuclear imaging, computed tomography (CT), and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging. A selection of these is presented in this article. The focus is mainly on technical innovations and emerging applications in clinical cardiology in prevention and beyond. This Current Opinion article is nicely complemented by another by G. De Backer, J.J.P. Kastelein, and U. Landmesser from Brussels, Amsterdam, and Berlin, respectively, ‘ The year in cardiology 2014: prevention ’. …