Volume 18 Issue 2, February 2021

In this Comment, Nikki Gillum Posnack discusses how the increasing use of plastics in everyday life has potentially harmful effects on cardiovascular health.

Omecamtiv mecarbil (a myosin activator) and mavacamten (a myosin inhibitor) have beneficial effects in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction or obstructive hypertrophic

cardiomyopathy, respectively.

In the AFFIRM-AHF trial, the use of intravenous ferric carboxymaltose in patients with acute heart failure and iron deficiency was associated with a reduction in hospitalization for heart

failure and cardiovascular death.

In the TIPS-3 trial, a single polypill comprising blood-pressure-lowering and cholesterol-lowering drugs, together with a daily dose of aspirin, reduced cardiovascular events in people at

risk of cardiovascular disease.

In patients with recurrent pericarditis, treatment with rilonacept, an engineered fusion protein that acts as an IL-1 trap, leads to a rapid resolution of recurrent pericarditis episodes and

reduces the risk of pericarditis recurrence.

Sotagliflozin reduces the risk of adverse cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease or worsening heart failure according to the SCORED and

SOLOIST-WHF trials.

In patients with heart failure who are carriers of a clonal haematopoiesis driver mutation in DNMT3A, circulating monocytes have a pro-inflammatory transcriptome, which might worsen disease

progression.

Findings from two clinical trials indicate that cryoablation as first-line treatment is superior to drug therapy for the prevention of atrial arrhythmia recurrence in patients with

paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.

Advances in cardiovascular monitoring technologies have resulted in an influx of consumer-targeted wearable sensors that have the potential to detect numerous heart conditions. In this

Review, Krittanawong and colleagues describe processes involved in biosignal acquisition and analysis of cardiovascular monitors, as well as their associated ethical, regulatory and legal

challenges.

Next-generation tissue-engineered heart valves (TEHVs) are a promising therapeutic option for patients with valvular heart disease. In this Review, Emmert and colleagues discuss the current

heart valve replacement options, describe the design of TEHVs and summarize the data from preclinical and clinical studies on the use of TEHVs.

Chronic liver disease can promote the development of numerous cardiac disorders and circulatory complications. In this Review, Pacher and colleagues describe some of the extrahepatic

complications of chronic liver disease and their shared pathophysiological mechanisms, including inflammation and oxidative stress.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the major factors contributing to the reduced life expectancy of patients with severe mental illness. In this Review, Nielsen and colleagues discuss the

current knowledge of risk factors, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of cardiovascular disease in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.