Riccardo Asteggiano – författare

Atrial Fibrillation (AF), due to aging population, is a new epidemic leading to increase in mortality, morbidity and affecting quality of life. AF often presents clear symptoms of palpitation and dyspnoea, though sometimes it may not be associated with a clear or any symptoms at all, but rather is diagnosed when one of its complications appears, mainly ischemic stroke or heart failure.Atrial Fibrillation for General Cardiologists: The management in an office-based setting of patients with or suspected to have Atrial Fibrillation summarizes the main epidemiologic and various clinical aspects of AF. The book covers a range of topics from the updates of diagnostic tools including eHealth tools, long term monitoring devices, mobile-Apps, to be utilized by both cardiologists and patients themselves; to clinical and therapeutic management for special populations such as elderly, patients with other illnesses such as Chronic Lung diseases, Cancer patients, Endocrine conditions, Gastroenteric disorders and more. The book is an essential guide for both clinicians and researchers with an interest in atrial fibrillation, summarizing all established guidelines and clarifying any unclear aspects when dealing with special population.

This book is designed for clinical cardiologists and other physicians working with cardiac patients, where specific specialized teams of cardio-oncologists are not available and who are called to perform a clinical consultation to evaluate both the cardiac condition and the eligibility for chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment, and to evaluate if a cancer treatment produces toxic effects on a patient treated with chemo or radiotherapy and if appearance of new symptoms is due to this treatment. In recent years, progress in oncologic therapy has resulted in important developments and the prognostic improvement of patients with malignancy. The cornerstone of chemotherapy are the anthracyclines (and the analogue Mitoxantrone), that are direct cellular toxic agents and that are among the most powerful anti-neoplastic drugs, but their cardiac toxicity is well known. Significant breakthroughs in cancer therapy have also been achieved with the introduction of signalling inhibitors, such as VEGF inhibitors, HERB2 inhibitors or TK inhibitors used alone or in combination with direct cellular toxic drugs. However, these signalling inhibitors may interact also with cardiovascular signalling and therefore may have functional or structural effects on the myocardium. This can be permanent or reversible, with impairment of the global conditions and important side effects, and increase both morbidity and mortality and worsening of quality of life. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can have acute detrimental effects that can be present for years after treatment and that can lead to cardiac consequences also after long periods of no clinic sequelae. Patient numbers with cancer problems will dramatically increase in the next years and thus every cardiologist will need to have the correct information and the skills to manage these situations in the correct way. This book will provide these tools for them.