European Heart Journal – Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy (2016) 2, 1–2 doi:10.1093/ehjcvp/pvv049
EDITORIAL
Second year of a journal Stefan Agewall* Oslo University Hospital Ulleva˚l and Institute of Clinical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
This is the first issue of the European Heart Journal—Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy in 2016. In the first year, we published four issues of the journal and received a steadily increased number of submissions. The rejection rate reached 70%, which is a number indicating that we have been able to select high-quality research for publication. This journal and other journal are dependent on the work of our reviewers. I talked about the journal with old friends who are in other business branches than academic medicine. I told them about the review system and how we select papers for publication. They asked me how much we pay these very highly qualified reviewers for their work. Since they are selected due to their known knowledge and good reputation, my friends expected that their fees would be sky high. It was very hard to convince them that the reviewers did this work for free, just as some kind of academic duty. That would NEVER happen in my business one of them said. I think it is fantastic that the academic society performs this work without any personal benefits at all, to help authors do develop their papers and journals to select the best papers for publication. In the journal, Jernberg and co-workers from Sweden report data from the SWEDEHEART registry. They analysed clinical characteristics of patients given ticagrelor for ACS in the registry. Forty-four per cent (n ¼ 12 601) out of a total of 28 639 patients had been prescribed ticagrelor at discharge. The risk of death as predicted by the GRACE score and the risk of major bleeding as predicted by the CRUSADE score were both lower in ticagrelor-treated patients vs. others (P for both ,0.001). The intended treatment duration at discharge was 12 months in 82.5% of patients and ,12 months in 9.3%. The authors concluded that ticagrelor was preferentially used in patients at lower risk, and only a minority of patients were recommended ticagrelor during ,12 months. Laura Fortuna and co-workers from USA conducted a retrospective population-based cohort study (n ¼ 2011) to examine patients with a diagnosis of CAD and documented aspirin use. During a mean follow-up of 3.1 years, the authors found no evidence that PPI use was associated with increased risk of MACE or all-cause mortality in aspirin-treated CAD patients. This paper is accompanied by an editorial of Deepak L. Bhatt, from Harvard Medical School, USA, who lead the COGENT study,1 which randomly assigned patients with an indication for dual antiplatelet therapy to receive
clopidogrel in combination with either omeprazole or placebo, in addition to aspirin. Among patients receiving aspirin and clopidogrel, prophylactic use of a PPI reduced the rate of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in the COGENT study, and there was no apparent cardiovascular interaction between clopidogrel and omeprazole, but the results did not rule out a clinically meaningful difference in cardiovascular events due to the use of a PPI, since it was prematurely terminated. This topic has recently been discussed in an ESC position paper from the Working Group of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy and the Working Group of Thrombosis.2 David Kallend and co-workers from Switzerland report data from 24 healthy volunteers and 24 patients with documented CAD who received a 2-h infusion of MDCO-216 in a randomized and placebocontrolled study. The authors concluded that MDCO-216 modulated lipid parameters, profoundly increased ABCA1-mediated cholesterol efflux, and was well tolerated. These single-dose data support further development of this agent for reducing atherosclerotic disease and subsequent cardiovascular events. The paper is commented on in an editorial of Kausik Ray from St George’s University of London, UK. Cenderitide is a novel dual natriuretic peptide (NP) receptor chimeric peptide activator, which targets the particulate guanylyl cyclase B (pGC-B) receptor and pGC-A unlike native NPs. John C. Burnett, at the Mayo Clinic, USA, confirms the ability of cenderitide to co-activate both pGC-A and pGC-B receptors in vitro. This paper is discussed in an editorial by Johann Wojta, from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria. In a review paper, Thomas Walther and co-workers from Cork in Ireland discuss the efficacy and safety of the most commonly prescribed antidiabetic drugs in the context of cardiovascular impact. Eliano Pio Navarese and Marco Matteo Ciccone from Du¨sseldorf in Germany discuss current experimental and clinical evidence of the role of PCSK9 and its inhibition on lipid metabolism and several pathologic conditions with a focus on clinical outcomes. A state-of-the-art analysis of current clinical evidence and future directions on PCSK9 and its inhibition is provided by the authors. Furthermore, Andreas Lundin and co-workers from Sweden review the evidence base for drug therapy in cardiac arrest. The editors of the journal sincerely hope, the readers will find this first issue of the second year of the journal interesting.
The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Editors of the European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy or of the European Society of Cardiology. *Corresponding author. Tel: +46704387269, Email:
[email protected] Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. & The Author 2015. For permissions please email:
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2 Conflict of interest: none declared.
References 1. Bhatt DL, Cryer BL, Contant CF, Cohen M, Lanas A, Schnitzer TJ, Shook TL, Lapuerta P, Goldsmith MA, Laine L, Scirica BM, Murphy SA, Cannon CP. Clopidogrel with or without omeprazole in coronary artery disease. NEJM 2010;363:1909–1917.
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Editorial
2. Agewall S, Cattaneo M, Collet JP, Andreotti F, Lip GY, Verheugt FW, Huber K, Grove EL, Morais J, Husted S, Wassmann S, Rosano G, Atar D, Pathak A, Kjeldsen K, Storey RF. ESC Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Drug Therapy and ESC Working Group on Thrombosis. Expert position paper on the use of proton pump inhibitors in patients with cardiovascular disease and antithrombotic therapy. Eur Heart J 2013;34: 1708 – 1713.
