Noninvasive Atherosclerotic Phenotyping: The Next Frontier into Understanding the Pathobiology of Coronary Artery Disease.

Purpose Of Review: Despite recent advances, coronary artery disease remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Noninvasive imaging allows atherosclerotic phenotyping by measurement of plaque burden, morphology, activity and inflammation, which has the potential to refine patient risk stratification and guide personalized therapy. This review describes the current and emerging roles of advanced noninvasive cardiovascular imaging methods for the assessment of coronary artery disease.

Diastolic Dysfunction Assessed Using Contemporary Guidelines and Prognosis Following Myocardial Infarction.

Background: Recent American Society of Echocardiography and European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging guidelines for the assessment of diastolic dysfunction (DD) recommend a simplified approach with four key variables incorporated into a novel diagnostic algorithm. The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic value of significant DD assessed using the algorithm recommended in the 2016 American Society of Echocardiography and European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging guidelines (DD2016) in comparison with the prognostic value of significant DD assessed using the 2009 guidelines (DD2009) as well as the individual parameters incorporated in the 2016 algorithm.

Methods: Retrospective data on 419 consecutive patients with first ever myocardial infarction were included.