SUMMARYHeart failure patients present an important thrombo-embolic risk, including symptomatic or silent peripheral arterial embolism, pulmonary embolism, and stroke. Patients in sinus rhythm who have concomitant depressed (<35%) left ventricular ejection fraction have a 4% rate of embolic events. Several prospective randomized trials of anticoagulation in this group of patients were either underpowered or had a short period of follow-up. Even though in two studies warfarin had a slight advantage over aspirin (in the WATCH and WARCEF trials), it was at the cost of an increased risk in major hemorrhage. To decrease bleeding rates and to improve anticoagulant effect, new treatment strategies have to be tested. Novel anticoagulants (dabigatran, rivaroxaban, and apixaban) seem to be a promising alternative.

The aim of this paper is to provide an accurate overview regarding the current recommended approach for antihypertensive treatment. The importance of DNA sequencing in understanding the complex implication of genetics in hypertension could represent an important step in understanding antihypertensive treatment as well as in developing new medical strategies. Despite a pool of data from studies regarding cardiovascular risk factors emphasizing a worse prognosis for female patients rather than male patients, there are also results indicating that women are more likely to be predisposed to the use of antihypertensive medication and less likely to develop uncontrolled hypertension. Moreover, lower systolic blood pressure values are associated with increased cardiovascular risk in women compared to men. The prevalence, awareness and, most importantly, treatment of hypertension is variable in male and female patients, since the mechanisms responsible for this pathology may be different and closely related to gender factors such as the renin–angiotensin system, sympathetic nervous activity, endothelin-1, sex hormones, aldosterone, and the immune system. Thus, gender-related antihypertensive treatment individualization may be a valuable tool in improving female patients’ prognosis.

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in the same patients, but treating different coronary segments, SES implantation induces a higher rate of vasoconstriction compared to BMS. The increased vasoconstriction after iiAch is an indicator of ED.

Cardiovascular and reproductive health of women have been going hand in hand since the dawn of time, however, their links have been poorly studied and once the basis of their connections started to be established in late 20th century, it depended on local regional abilities and the level of progressive thinking to afford comprehensive women?s care beyond the ?bikini medicine?. Further research identified different associations rendering more conditions sex-specific and launching therefore a slow, yet initial turn around in clinical trials? concept as the majority of global cardiovascular guidelines rely on the results of research conducted on a very modest percentage of women and even less on the women of color. Currently, the concept of women?s heart centers varies depending on the local demographics? guided needs, available logistics driven by budgeting and societal support of a broad-minded thinking environment, free of bias for everyone: from young adults questioning their gender identity, via women of reproductive age both struggling to conceive or keep working part time when healthy and line of work permits it during pregnancy, up to aging and the elderly. Using ?Investigate-Educate-Advocate-Legislate? as the four pillars of advancing cardiovascular care of women, we aimed to summarize standing of women?s health in Serbia, present ongoing projects and propose actionable solutions for the future.

Although doxorubicin (Dox) is an effective antitumor antibiotic in the anthracycline class, it often induces the undesirable side effect of cardiomyopathy leading to congestive heart failure, which limits its clinical use. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate a reliable translational method for Dox-induced cardiotoxicity (CTX) screening, aiming to identify a high-risk population and to discover new strategies to predict and investigate this phenomenon. Early identification of the presence of iron deposits and genetic and environmental triggers that predispose individuals to increased risk of Dox-induced CTX (e.g., overexpression of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)) will enable the early implementation of countermeasure therapy, which will improve the patient’s chance of survival. Our cohort consisted of 25 consecutive patients with pathologically confirmed cancer undergoing Dox chemotherapy and 12 control patients. The following parameters were measured: serum TLR4 (baseline), serum transferrin (baseline and 6-week follow-up) and iron deposition (baseline and 6-week follow-up). The average number of gene expression units was 0.121 for TLR4 (range 0.051–0.801). We subsequently correlated serum TLR4 levels in our cohort with myocardial iron overload using the cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) T2* technique, the ventricular function (% ejection fraction, %EF) and serum transferrin levels. There is a strong negative linear relationship between serum TLR4 and CMR T2* values (r =  − 0.9106, ****P < 0.0001). There is also a linear correlation (either positive or negative) with EF and transferrin; no established relationship related to the sex of the patients was found. Patients with elevated serum TLR4 at baseline also exhibited an increase in serum transferrin levels and Dox-induced left ventricular dysfunction with a decreased EF (< 50%); this phenomenon was observed in 7 of 25 patients (28%) at the 6-week follow-up. There were no significant differences or correlations based on sex. We concluded that there is a direct relationship between Dox-induced CTX (indicated by elevated serum TLR4) and the times (ms) for T2* (decreases in which correspond to immediate and rapid iron overload).

COVID-19 is a worldwide crisis with a great impact in health structures. Delay in the management of routine medical conditions has been reported during this pandemic. We describe the case of a spontaneous dissection coronary arteries which has been initially misclassified as a case of COVID-19 infection

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