Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases

Life expectancy has increased significantly in recent decades thanks to enormous progress made in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The most evident demonstration of the effectiveness of these actions is given by the reduction in mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Suffice it to say that in the 1980s a person suffered a myocardial infarction had an 18% chance to die within the first thirty days, while today thanks to modern pharmacological therapies and above all to effective interventions such as timely coronary angioplasty this percentage has reduced to 6%.

The great progress in cardiology, in addition to increasing life expectancy, has also significantly improved the quality of life of patients suffering from chronic cardiovascular diseases such as ischemic heart disease and heart failure, greatly reducing hospitalizations. Despite this, cardiovascular diseases still represent the leading cause of death in Italy, as well as throughout the Western world, where it is estimated that approximately every year 17.9 million deaths referable to them. In Italy cardiovascular diseases are responsible for 35.8% of all deaths (32.5% in men and 38.8% in women), exceeding the 230,000 cases per year.

Scientific research, which has always been very active in Cardiology, has recently introduced innovative drugs into therapy, which have proven particularly effective in improving symptoms and reducing mortality from cardiovascular diseases.
In summary, with the rational therapy of diabetes and dyslipidemia, which are the most important cardiovascular risk factors, both the quality and life expectancy have significantly improved. Furthermore, technological progress has made increasingly safer and more effective systems available in the minimally invasive treatment of cardiac pathologies, such as valvular diseases which until not long ago required complex cardiac surgery. The role of prevention obviously remains fundamental, in which, it must be remembered, there are still unacceptable delays, particularly in health education.

This will be discussed at the next Congress ofNational Association of Hospital Cardiologists (ANMCO) of the Campania region, which will be held on 15 and 16 April at the Lloyd’s Baia Hotel in Salerno. More than 200 cardiologists from all the hospitals in Campania and beyond, with the support of internationally renowned experts, will address the hot topics in the field of cardiovascular diseases.

Francesco VigoritoInterventional Cardiologist of the AOU “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona of Salerno” and President of ANMCO Campania declares: «It is true that thanks to progress in the pharmacological and interventional fields it is possible to improve the prognosis of heart disease patients, but it is also true that we are witnessing a worrying increase in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. It’s just an apparent contradiction. More people get sick every year and this is due to the increase in risk factors such as diabetes and hypercholesterolemia and a harmful lifestyle due to poor eating habits and poor physical activity. Hence the importance of prevention. The ANMCO Campania Congress represents an important event aimed not only at the scientific cardiology community, but also at doctors from different disciplines to take stock of issues relating to cardiovascular prevention, the new therapeutic opportunities currently available and the implementation of international cardiological guidelines».