Article Outline

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It is my pleasure to present the first issue of Cardiovascular Revascularization Medicine for 2006. In 2005, we witnessed progress in clinical evidence to support the expanded use of drug-eluting stents in day-to-day practice, the progress in cell therapy primarily for myocardial regeneration, and developments in imaging and endovascular therapy. As intended, the journal presents diversified topics related to cardiovascular medicine but still maintains a warm corner for articles on vascular brachytherapy. An interesting observation is that drug-eluting stents, although they diminish the use of vascular brachytherapy, continue to carry the issues of late thrombosis and late restenosis. The latter condition may resurrect the use of vascular brachytherapy in large centers and will require the know-how to perform the procedure.

Three important Clinical Original articles are included in this issue. Wöhrle et al report on clinical and angiographic data regarding the safety and efficacy of rhenium-188 brachytherapy in restenosis after brachytherapy failure. Next, Clavijo et al examined infarct size and short-term outcomes among nondiabetic patients with metabolic syndrome following contemporary treatment of acute myocardial infarction. In their submission, Hassapoyannes et al examined a population of cardiac patients undergoing noncardiac surgery to determine whether coronary angiography was successfully used to identify and treat ischemic heart disease.

This issue also boasts of two Vascular Biology articles. Bhakta et al expressed the CXCR4 gene in these cells using retroviral transduction to optimize migration and survival of human mesenchymal stem cells. Porter et al determined that systemic administration of anti-c-myc bound to perfluorocarbon-exposed sonicated dextrose albumin microbubbles may be a method of preventing coronary neointimal formation within and around implanted stents.

In our only Physics Original submission, Witkowski et al designed a randomized trial comparing a recommended dose prescription protocol with dosing adjusted for the source-to-target distance.

Next, Shochat et al, in our New Technologies and Innovations section, aimed to assess the feasibility and efficacy of a new method to detect preclinical acute heart failure.

A Technical Note was provided by Rigatelli et al, in which they present a simple technique to avoid time loss and potential dangerous maneuvers for catheterization of the radial artery in endovascular interventions.

Movahed et al provided a Case Report that describes the case of a 76-year-old African American man who complained of an acute onset of substernal chest pain for several hours.

Also, our Image of the Issue shows the course of anomalous left main coronary artery not clearly determined by angiography in a 54-year-old gentleman who presented with atypical chest pain and abnormal stress test.

For 2006, we hope to make the journal even stronger and will continue our interesting and novel work in the field of cardiovascular medicine. We also intend to expand the number of manuscripts and pages for each individual issue and target a broader base of contributors and readers alike. The journal is beginning to flourish in its new format, and we would like to thank everyone who helped make this happen.