August 2012: The Increasing International Presence of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology

Interventional cardiology continues to grow worldwide. In part, this is due to the effectiveness of the procedures and the relative cost-effectiveness of interventional approaches versus surgical approaches. Innovation in procedural aspects, as well as pharmacological adjunctive therapy, continues and we can all learn from our colleagues practicing in different locales.

In this issue of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology, there are contributions from all around the globe: China, Japan, South Korea, India, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, Denmark, Mexico, and the United States. In addition to the valuable perspectives of interventionalists from different countries, often technologies become available in some areas before others. Such early reports are useful to give practitioners a sense of what might be available to them in the near future.

For example, this issue of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology includes articles from Japan about a new re-entry device for treating chronic total occlusions of coronary arteries; a randomized trial of radial versus femoral approaches for percutaneous coronary intervention of ST-elevation myocardial infarction after thrombolysis from China; insights from optical coherence tomography (OCT) on stenting of saphenous vein grafts from Texas; a study from Denmark examining smoking, STEMI, time-to-treatment and fibrinolysis; an intriguing association between low vitamin D levels and diffuse coronary artery disease and endothelial dysfunction from India; and several other interesting and useful original papers and case reports.

These articles provide information to our readers that can be immediately incorporated into interventional practice with applicability worldwide. We hope to continue to attract important submissions from interventionalists everywhere.

Sincerely,