Editorial

From Editor-in-Chief: Concluding Year 2023, our gains,  gratitude to our reviewers and contributors,  current issue, guidelines  and news from AHA 2023 scientific sessions, long COVID and protecting your patients

Dear readers,

Concluding the year 2023, we would like to share our achievements and set the goals for the upcoming 2024. The main news and result of our common work in peer-review process and production of quality evidence-based knowledge is that we obtained our ranking in SCOPUS database –for starting point we are in Q4 and 456^th  among 496 journals in surgery and  334^th  among 354 cardiology and cardiovascular medicine journals  (Fig.1).

We are also indexed now in EBSCO database and BIOSIS, Clarivate databases.

Therefore, our goals in upcoming year 2024 are to increase our ranking in SCOPUS database and to be accepted to PUBMED/PMC NLM and Clarivate  Emergent Source and further the Web of Science and Knowledge databases.

As editors and reviewers, we continue our work to increase quality of our articles and prepare them to enter pool of evidence-based knowledge.

One of the main features of the successful journal is the principle of diversity of authors, reviewers and editors, their origin countries.

In 2023 we received articles for consideration for publication from 18 countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, India, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, and  Uzbekistan. Thus,  in total we have evaluated and published articles from 37 countries since starting our journal in 2017 and increased number of countries we received manuscripts  from 13 in 2022 to 18 in 2023 (the highest was in 2021 – 24 countries).

Figure 1. SCOPUS ranking of Heart, Vessels and Transplantation

Figure 2. Distribution of reviewers from 19 countries by number (%) from each country, contributed to peer-review process in 2023

We would like to thank our reviewers from 19 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,  Mexico, Nepal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, Ukraine and USA)  (Fig.1) for their hard work and excellency in peer-review in  2023. As can be seen from Figure 1, following countries are represented by the highest number of reviewers in 2023: Italy – 23%, Kyrgyzstan -10.14%, USA- 7.9%, Brazil – 6.8%, and Kazakhstan and Ukraine  by 5.7% each.

The distinguished reviewers of the year 2023, who  performed 3 and more manuscripts evaluations are:

Marina S Horenstein, form Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA; Fabio Massimo Oddi from Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tor Vergata University Hospital of Rome, Rome, Italy;

Juan Velasco, from Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Yale University, USA;

Giangiuseppe Cappabianca, from Department of Cardiac Surgery, Circolo Hospital, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy;  Bakytbek Imanov, from NCCT, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

We would like to express our gratitude to  colleagues who contributed by preparing Editorials on advancement of clinical knowledge in 2023 – Stefano Cacciatore and colleagues from Rome, Italy, Fabio Massimo Oddi and colleagues from Rome, Italy, Zhenisgul Tlegenova and colleagues from Aktobe, Kazakhstan, Luigi Spadafora and colleagues from Rome, Italy, Giuseppe Iuliano and colleagues from Salerno, Italy and Marco Bernardi and colleagues from Rome, Italy.

We welcome our Editors, who joined our international  board in 2023 – Nirmal J. Kaur from Dakota, USA (acute coronary care and interventional cardiology), Huseyin el Aburawi from UAE (pediatric cardiology) and Ulises Rojel Martinez from Mexico (EP arrhythmias), who contribute with their advanced knowledge and valuable expertise to our peer-review process and editorial policies. We expanded thus our board by editors from 22 countries – Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Monaco, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, UK, Ukraine,  and USA.

The most read articles published in 2023  are presented in Table  1, and includes review, editorial articles in  scope of interest for  wide multidisciplinary audience – mobilization of patients with deep venous thrombosis, management of:  acute coronary syndromes in  elderly, arrhythmias in pregnancy, patients with aortic disease and cardiac amyloidosis. The most read articles by type are:  research article  on arrhythmias and surgery - on lead extraction in patients with implanted devices, review article on mobilization of patients with deep venous thrombosis and case report on interventional cardiology – coronary anomaly discovered during primary percutaneous coronary intervention and stenting in patient with acute myocardial infarction. 

Recently, the AHA 2023 scientific sessions took place. The most interesting trial that attracted my attention is STEP-HFpEF trial analysis (1). On pre-specified analysis of STEP-HFpEF study (1), semaglutide (weight reduction and antidiabetic agent, glucagon like peptide (GLP) 1 receptor agonist) not only reduced weight but also improved quality of life, reduced symptoms burden, improved walking distance and reduced inflammation in patients with HFpEF (HF with preserved ejection fraction) and obesity. It should be noted that 1/3 of these patients were taking SGLT2 (sodium-glucose cotransporter 2) inhibitors. Thus this trial shows that we might have a new agent aiming at modification of risk factor as obesity, has effects beyond the weight reduction and is complementary beneficial in to contemporary therapy in HFpEF patients. 

Another large registry study on blood pressure (BP) levels and cardiovascular (CV) mortality in Asian population with diabetes type 2 (2) demonstrated increased risk of CV mortality with systolic BP above <130-139 mmHg  (HR: 1.16; 95% CI: 1.01-1.33), which increased further up to 1.87 (95% CI: 1.65-2.12) times higher in  patients with systolic BP ≥ 140 mm Hg. For diastolic BP the desirable level without enhanced risk of CV mortality was 70-90 mmHg as both upper and lower levels of this range were associated with increased risk of mortality. This study once more emphasizes control of BP in diabetes patients and provides desirable target levels of BP.

WATCH- DM score plus NT-proBNP (3) predicted prevention of HF by use of SGLT₂ inhibitors in diabetes mellitus and may be used for selection of patients at risk of HF for treatment of SGLT₂.

SELECT trial (4) demonstrated that use of semaglutide (GLP 1 agonist) in patients with obesity and overweight, as a single dose in a week reduced CV death and stroke risk by 20% and caused weight reduction by 9.4% during 3 years of follow-up in 17000 cohort of overweight and obese patients without diabetes.  These are interesting data on relatively new therapy that has effects beyond the glucose and weight reduction.

Interesting ORBITA 2 trial demonstrated that percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with no or little antianginal medications and evidence of ischemia results in 2.21 times lower angina score than in placebo (95%CI  1.41-3.47, p<0.001) at 12  weeks after PCI(5).

ARTESIA investigators (6) demonstrated that apixaban in subclinical atrial fibrillation (AF) reduced stroke and systemic embolism by 37% (p=0.007) than aspirin but bleeding risk almost doubled (HR 1.8, 95% CI 1.26-2.57, p=0.001). More studies are need as subclinical AF also is associated 2.5 risk of stroke.

A new ACC/AHA/ACCP/HRS guideline on AF was released at the end of November and one of our editors, Bulent Gorenek contributed to the preparation of this important document (7). The Editorial introducing guideline is being prepared by our Editors. Briefly main key points are classification of A, stage1 - at risk of AF with presence of modifiable risk factors; stage 2 - pre-AF based on presence of structural and electrical findings predisposing to AF, stage – 3A- paroxysmal AF (lasting less than 7 days); 3B – persistent continuous and sustained lasting more than 7 days, requiring intervention;

3C – long-standing  persistent (>12 months); Stage 3D – successful AF ablation or surgical intervention and stage 4 – permanent AF.

Lifestyle modifications are essential to prevent progression and adverse outcomes, catheter ablation is recommended for symptomatic young patients with paroxysmal AF and less comorbidities as first- line therapy and also in other than young with persistent or paroxysmal  AF, catheter ablation is recommended  as 1^st line therapy  to improve symptoms;  LAA occlusion is reasonable as class 2a indication for patients with contraindication to oral anticoagulation and CHA₂DS₂-VASc score ≥2 and following risk scores are  recommended  CHA2DS2-VASc,  ATRIA and Garfield AF.

Finally, advise your patients to undergo vaccination – COVID, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, to prevent infection and exacerbation of cardiovascular and other comorbidities, as we know now post-COVID or long COVID syndrome are less after vaccination(8).

Gulmira Kudaiberdieva

Editor-in-Chief

Heart, Vessels and Transplantation

Peer-review: Internal

Conflict of interest: None to declare

Authorship:  G.K.

Acknowledgment and Funding:  None to declare