Although great advances have been made, the problem of irreversible myocardium loss due to the limited regeneration capacity of cardiomyocytes has not been fully solved. The morbidity and mortality of heart disease still remain high. There are many therapeutic strategies for treating heart disease, while low efficacy and high cost remain challenging. Abundant evidence has shown that both acute and chronic inflammations play a crucial role in heart regeneration and repair following injury. Macrophages, a primary component of inflammation, have attracted much attention in cardiac research in recent decades. The detailed mechanisms of the roles of macrophages in heart regeneration and repair are not completely understood, in part because of their complex subsets, various functions, and intercellular communications. The purpose of this review is to summarize the progress made in the understanding of macrophages, including recent reports on macrophage differentiation, polarization and function, and involvement in heart regeneration and repair. Also, we discuss progress in treatments, which may suggest directions for future research.

Background: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a common cause of secondary hypertension and confers a higher risk of stroke. The treatment strategies of PA mainly include medical and adrenalectomy treatment, while there is still no solid conclusion on how these two different treatment strategies mitigate the detrimental effect of PA on stroke. Methods: PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched for studies comparing stroke events in patients with PA receiving medical treatment versus adrenalectomy treatment published up to 19 March 2022, including patients with essential hypertension as a control group. We used either fixed or random effect models according to the heterogeneities. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by deleting each study one at a time. Results: We reviewed 201 articles, and three studies met the final criteria, including 3244 PA patients with medical treatment, 1611 PA patients with adrenalectomy treatment, and 20,568 EH patients. Patients with PA post adrenalectomy were observed with a significantly decreased risk of stroke compared to patients receiving medical treatment (OR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.35–0.93, p = 0.03), and with no difference when compared to patients with essential hypertension. Patients with PA receiving medical treatment were still observed with higher stroke risks (OR: 1.88, 95% CI: 1.68–2.11, p < 0.00001) than patients with essential hypertension. Conclusion: PA is a critical modifiable risk factor for stroke. Adrenalectomy has a superior performance in the mitigation of stroke risks among patients with PA.

Introduction: Intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) provides superior quality images and can monitor catheter location within the heart continuously. Given the limited evidence, we conducted the meta-analysis to evaluate outcomes with ICE in radiofrequency (RF) ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods and Results: PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane were searched for studies reporting RF ablation for treatment of AF with the use of ICE versus without ICE and 12 studies were included. Sensitivity analyses limiting studies to ablation with the use of contact force (CF) catheters were conducted and subgroup analyses were performed according to the published year. In main analyses, RF ablation with ICE for treatment of AF was associated with significant reduction in total X-ray time (mean difference [MD], −9.80; 95% confidence interval [CI], −15.57 to −4.04;I 2 = 99%; p < .01), total procedure time (MD, −17.65; 95% CI, −30.22 to −5.09; I 2 = 89%; p < .01), and complications (relative risk [RR], 0.90; 95% CI, 0.87-0.92; I 2 = 20%; p < .01) versus without ICE. The ICE-guided group tended to decrease total absorbed X-ray dose (standardized mean difference, −0.91; 95% CI, −1.86 to 0.04; I 2 = 96%; p = .06). Freedom from arrhythmia (RR, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.98-1.14; I 2 = 0%; p = .13) was comparable between the two groups. Conclusion:In patients with AF, ICE-guided RF ablation is correlated with significant reductions in total X-ray time, total procedure time, and complications versus ablation without ICE. Total absorbed X-ray dose tends to reduce in the ICE group and freedom from arrhythmia is comparable between the two groups.