Eugene I. Chazov - Böcker

Once in four years, cardiologists of the world united into the International Society and Federation of Cardiology corne together to discuss the most pressing problems of cardiovascular pathology, sum up the accomplishments of the intervening years, and set directions for future research and exploitation of the existing knowledge. Not too much time passed since the I Paris Congress of International Foundation of Cardiology in 1950, but since then we have been witnessing a real information explosion. Extraordinary amounts of new knowledge, accumulated during the past three decades, has revolutionized our understanding of major cardiovascular diseases as well as approach to their treatment and diagnosis. The IX World Congress of Cardiology, held in Moscow in June 20-26, gathered 5,099 delegates from 78 countries. In the course of the Congress, prominent scientists presenting 21 lectures on topical problems of theoretical and practical cardiology; 900 papers were heard at 37 Symposia and 58 Free Communication Sessions. The papers and discussions demonstrated an increased contribution of fundamental research to clinical arsenal. Another feature of modern biomedical research is that it makes use of the latest accomplishments in other fields of science and technology: physics, chemistry, elec­ tronics, etc. Of late, a new research discipline, called molecular cardiology, has formed. By elucidating the most subtle basic mechanisms whereby pathological processes develop, it is expected to afford ultimate control of cardiovascular diseases. The Congress demonstrated that new knowledge about the diagnosis and treatment is being successfully introduced into clinical practice.

This volume of Advances in Myocardiology is derived from a part of the proceedings of the 10th Congress of the International Society for Heart Research, which was held in Moscow on September 23-29, 1980. This book contains selected papers which have been arranged in two sections, Cardiac Hypertrophy, Adaptation, and Pathophysiology and Cardiac Hypoxia, Is­ chemia, and Infarction. The first section, on the pathophysiology of heart hypertrophy and failure, contains 24 chapters that focus on the derangement of biochemical, physiological, and immunological processes during the de­ velopment of heart disease due to a wide variety of pathogenic factors. Some of the recent developments in understanding the myocardial synthetic ma­ chinery in heart hypertrophy are also described in these papers, and we believe that the contents of this section will stimulate further research in the area of heart disease. The second section, which mainly deals with myocardial ischemia, contains 35 chapters providing the necessary back­ ground for the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease and some possible ther­ apeutic approaches. It hardly needs to be emphasized that ischemic heart disease is a major cause of death in highly industrialized countries, but unfortunately the exact mechanism by which ischemic insult leads to the development of heart cell damage is far from understood. We are hopeful that the articles in this section will provide valuable information in this field and thus will help in improving the treatment of ischemic heart disease.