Editorial

From Editor-in-Chief: On issue, our performance in 2024, appreciating the best, new trials and guidelines,  re-infection

Graphical abstract

Key words: Biomedical publishing, performance, citation analysis, peer-review, surgery, vascular diseases, cardiology, interventions, imaging

Dear readers

In current issue you can find excellent editorial highlighting and comparing 2 guidelines on management of pneumothorax; research articles on conflict resolution in nurses, effect of fatty diet on histolophysiology of lungs and oxygen transport, immune and autonomic function changes in ischemic stroke, new marker of angiogenesis and discussion its  meaning for transplantology, taurolidine in prevention of  cardiac implanted devices` infections, cardiac remodeling and global longitudinal strain in male athletes, correlation of coronary artery disease with risk factors in peripheral artery disease, computed tomography evaluation of vascular changes in hepatic alveococcosis.  

You might be interested also in comprehensive review on obesity-mediated endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis and challenging case reports on hour-glass appearance of right ventricle in constrictive pericarditis, unusual acute myocardial infarction with papillary muscle rupture and pulmonary embolism and heparin-induced thrombocytopenia after tricuspid valve replacement for Ebstein anomaly. Hope you find them interesting and useful.

Regarding performance of our articles and journal overall in 2024, we should acknowledge the increase in cited articles – 71, and citations 112 and Hirsch index -4 (Fig.1). As you can see from Figure 1, number of citations per year gradually increased from 9 in 2019 to 36 in 2024.ъ

Figure 1. Dynamics of citations number from 2019 and 2025 (modified from ref 1.)

If we look at citied articles structure (Fig. 2), research articles received majority of citations- 37%, followed by editorials 18%, review articles – 14% and case reports – 11%. It is expected and good distribution, as research articles lead.

Figure 3. Proportion of cited articles by type:  original research, review, case report, editorial and other

Mainstay of our success is an unbiased peer-review and contributors - members of peer-review process: authors, who submit manuscripts for evaluation and reviewers, editors, who select the best and work with authors on improvement of content. International diversity is a key to provide unbiased review. 

For past year our international diversity of authors and reviewers expanded (Fig. 3), we have now 42 countries that sent us manuscripts for evaluation: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Cyprus, Denmark  Egypt, Ethiopia, France,  Germany,  Greece , Hong Kong , India,  Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mali , Mexico , Monaco, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkiye, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

 Our valuable external reviewers  experts are from 35 countries: Argentine, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belorussia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy,  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,  Lebanon, Mexico, Monaco, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Africa, South Korea,  Sweden,  Spain, Switzerland, Turkiye, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America.

We also have enriched our board in 2024 and 2025 by new members and we have now Editors from 22 countries Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Monaco, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Spain, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkiye,  Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America.

We thank all our reviewers and editors for dedicated unbiased work. I would to welcome our new valuable Editor on pediatric cardiology, pediatric electrophysiology, exercise physiology Maria Silvana Horenstein from USA and look forward to select and produce the quality evidence in these fields.

We would like to acknowledge authors of the  most read and downloaded on our website and social media articles published in 2024 (Tables 1-3). As you can see in top 5 on website, we have research, state of art review and Editorials highlighting new guidelines recommendations. The top article is Editorial on conduction system pacing by Naren Kumar from United Kingdom.

Top 5 Facebook  posts, top original research, review and case report posts are presented in Table2 .

We congratulate our authors for excellent articles.

As you can see 4 of 5 are case reports and Editorial  regarding case report published in our journal and providing new diagnostic solutions to the challenging case. Thus, our excellent case reports received recognition by large audience of physicians and also case reports are part of evidence-based knowledge. 

The top Facebook post and case report post is by Randa Tabbah and colleagues from Beirut, Lebanon presenting the new technique of diagnosis and  ablation of atrial flutter – 12180 reached and 18900 views.

The top tweets of 2024 are presented in Table 3.

The leading 5 tweets include original research articles, state of art review,  and two case reports. Top tweet  is experimental neurovascular randomized study on effect of fat diet on brain vasculature by Aigul Altynbekova  et al. from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that collected 819 impressions. We have review on chronic coronary disease, and pediatric surgery and 2 case reports on cardiology, cardiac surgery and cardio-oncology. Hope we will receive more citations.

We thank all reviewers and editors for excellent results in 2024.

And outstanding reviewers and editors in 2024, who performed more than 3 excellent quality evaluations are:

Reviewers:

-Vitaliy Petrov from Ukraine completed  5  review assignments on  cardiac surgery and transplantation

-Nelya Oryshchyn from Ukraine  - 3 reviewer assignments  in the field of cardiac imaging, echocardiography

-Feruza Kochkorova from Kyrgyzstan  - 3 reviewer assignments on public health

-Zhenisgul Tlegenova from Kazakhstan  - 3 reviewer assignments on cardiology

Editors:

-Nurlan Brimkulov, Kyrgyzstan – 5 Editor evaluations on pulmonology, nursing

-Kuat Abzaliev, Kazakhstan  -  4 Editor evaluations on cardiac surgery

-Nirmal J. Kaur , USA- 4 Editor evaluations on cardiology, interventions

-Fabio Massimo Oddi, Italy - 4 Editor evaluations on vascular surgery

-Andrea Lorenzo, Brazil – 3 Editor evaluations on cardiology

-Salvatore Scianna, Italy - 3 Editor evaluations on cardiac surgery and structural heart interventions

-Mykhaylo Soroivskyy, Ukraine – 3 Editor evaluations on arrhythmias EP and cardiology

I would like also to thank my Editors who participated in preparation of Editorial and quiz article in frame of CME  and advancement of evidence –based practice knowledge for our readers and conducting Editorial work.

We will send certificates to outstanding authors, reviewers and Editors.

There are several interesting trials and guidelines, documents are published (2-7). As we know glucagone- like -peptide 1 agonists (GLP1) have beneficial cardiovascular effects. The Tirzepatide that has dual effects on GLP1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP)  in SURMOUNT randomized trial, including 1032 patients with obesity and pre-diabetes  markedly  reduced both weight and  incidence of diabetes  mellitus type 2 during 193 weeks of follow-up. Good and promising results for people with both risk factors for cardiovascular disease as obesity and diabetes mellitus.  

Among recent guidelines and  documents I recommend the following: ACC Cardiovascular imaging statement for assessment of  cardiac- device infections  and infectious endocarditis (3), EACVI documents on multimodality imaging with left ventricular assisted devices (LVADs) (4), EACVI document on on how to prepare imaging research a manuscripts (5), British guidelines on management of emergencies in LVADs (6)  and 2025 ACC/AHA  guidelines on management of patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) (7). Some of these important documents will be presented by our Editors and invited experts in forth coming issues.  

I would like shortly describe EACVI document on multimodality imaging of durable  LVADs (4). Document aims to describe imaging modalities and techniques for preparation of and guiding procedure and diagnosis of complications in  growing patient population with HF and awaiting transplantation, Among preoperative modalities transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is needed to evaluate chamber quantification and valves evaluation, while both TTE and  transesophageal echocardiography (TOE) are recommended for valve, thrombi and shunt  evaluations.  Computed tomography (CT) assists in evaluation of chest anatomy and intracardiac thrombi and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) - in chamber quantification, valve, ischemia, scar, anatomy, shunt, and intracardiac thrombi  evaluations.  Intraoperatively TOE is used for guidance of apical coring, exclusion of air bubbles, LVAD activation and speed optimization, unmask aortic regurgitation, position of inflow and outflow grafts and unmask patent foramen ovale. Postoperatively TTE is recommended to diagnose  thrombosis, vegetations, tamponade, cannulas,  aortic and tricuspid regurgitations and assess aortic valve opening, right ventricular diameter and function. CT aids in diagnosis of thrombosis and infections and positron emission tomography is diagnosis of infection.   To learn details how to do read the document (4). EACVI document on how to conduct research and prepare manuscript  for imaging studies (5) is based on Prepare, Image, Analyze and Disseminate principle. It provides comprehensive guidance on preparation of different research design manuscripts detailing the imaging tools and approaches.

Lastly, as COVID infection trends low, there is still risk of infection and we continue learning more on long COVID,  keep up with vaccinations and there is a good resource published by CDC on reinfection and Long COVID,  to your knowledge (8, 9).

Gulmira Kudaiberdieva

Editor-in-Chief

Heart, Vessels and Transplantation

Peer-review: Internal

Conflict of interest: None to declare

Authorship: G.K.

Acknowledgements and funding: None to declare

Statement on A.I.-assisted technologies use: We declare that we did not use AI-assisted technologies in preparation of this manuscript

Data and material availability: Do not apply