Cardiology has in the last 50 years made incredible progress and has
contributed to more than 6 out of 10 years of the lifespan increase. This is an
enormous achievement, bigger than all of the other specialties combined.
Despite this, cardiovascular disease is still the foremost cause of death and
permanent disability in Western countries and is set to become the foremost
cause of death by the year 2020. Thus, cardiology has not yet succeeded in
avoiding cardiovascular mortality from occurring, it has just contributed to
delaying it. Even this achievement is, of course, of paramount importance, but
clearly there is still much to learn about cardiovascular disease, particularly
in understanding the basic mechanism of disease, the pathophysiology, and the
evolution of diagnostic methods. The explosion of diagnostic techniques
combined with new biological assays, particularly those based on genomes and
proteomics, do help in making more accurate and precise diagnosis, but require
a unusual degree of updated knowledge, the provision of which is one of the
many goals of the new edition of The ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular
Medicine. Equally, the management of cardiology patients, from
collecting their histories, to dealing with the psychological impact of ageing,
to the regulatory aspects of their disease, is rapidly changing and this is
discussed in depth. Sport is becoming more and more popular also as a
consequence of several campaigns of prevention. Together with the problem of
non-cardiac surgery in cardiac patients, these are other specific goals of the
new edition. Of course, the new topics are offered in addition to an extended
and comprehensive revision of all topics of the first edition according to the
updated guidelines and ESC core syllabus. We are confident and proud that the
second edition will become the new benchmark for cardiology in Europe and
beyond.
The ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine (2 edn)
