Cardiovascular
Medicine
ESC CardioMed – the new electronic ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine
The new electronic ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine

ESC CardioMed – the new electronic ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine

News
Thomas F. Lüscher
Additional authors
John A. Camm, Gerald Maurer, Patrick Serruys
Issue
2018/09
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4414/cvm.2018.00567
Cardiovasc Med. 2018;21(09):236-237

Published on 19.09.2018

The new electronic ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine

Education – the mission of the ESC

The education of trainees, postgraduate and established cardiologists alike has always been a critical component of the mission of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Besides the most successful congresses of the main Society as well as its Associations, the growing ESC journal family and also the ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine have been important products of this successful strategy.

The ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine

The first edition of the ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine was published in print in 2009 by Blackwell, with John Camm, Thomas F. Lüscher and Patrick Serruys as editors. Following the success of the first edition, the second edition appeared in 2011, this time published by Oxford University Press. Although available from the outset in a basic digital format, after the launch of the second edition the editors of the textbook felt that in today’s modern world a more dynamic electronic version of a cardiology textbook with a sophisticated search system, many illustrations and movies should be developed.

ESC CardioMed

Thus, in 2016 the ESC Board of the European Society of Cardiology decided to launch a third edition of the textbook, this time in a completely different format (fig. 1).
Figure 1: ESC CardioMed online.
The editors, now also including Gerald Maurer (fig. 2), decided to enlarge the scope of the textbook to include many of the so far un­covered topics within the growing field of cardiovascular medicine, such as embryology, catheter-based structural interventions, psycho­­logical factors, ethnicity, interpretation of trials and personalised medicine, to name but a few.
Figure 2: ESC CardioMed editors (from left to right): Thomas F. Lüscher, John A. Camm, ­Gerald Maurer, Patrick W. Serruys
As such, the concept of a huge, primarily electronic textbook was born with four main editors, 63 section coordinators and more than 1000 chapter authors. As one can imagine, such a large project took more time than anticipated to develop, but the editors are now ready to proudly announce the publication of ESC CardioMed. Access tothishuge electronic database is available as a membership benefit for all Professional Members and Fellows of theEuropean Society of Cardiology. For others wishing to access the publication, annual subscriptions are available for individuals and institutions alike through the publisher.
In spring 2018 about a third of the ESC CardioMed content became available online and now, on the occasion of the Annual Congress of theEuropean Society of Cardiology in ­Munich in August 2018, the majority of the chapters, with a very few exceptions, will be accessible online. The database has a sophisticated search system allowing rapid identification of the relevant parts of the book. Each of the chapters is illustrated, most with full colour figures and informative tables or videos of the most important clinical features. The imaging sections in particular contain numerous videos of different cardiac conditions.
A novel aspect of the electronic ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine is first of all its name. It will be introduced under the name of ESC CardioMed to communicate its modern ­nature as a primarily comprehensive electronic database. Furthermore, and most importantly, it will be continually updated, three times a year after each of the large ­cardiology congresses such as the Annual Congress of the European Society of Cardiology, the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association and the Annual Congress of the American College of Cardiology. Updates will primarily involve new trials affecting clinical practice or new imaging or interventional techniques highly relevant for the management of patients, as well as new ­insights into causes and mechanisms of cardiovascular disease of clinical interest. This will avoid the problem that most textbooks encounter, i.e., that they are outdated by the time they appear.

The content

The content of the textbook is divided into 63 sections that cover major aspects of cardiovascular disease (table 1).
Table 1: CardioMed table of contents.
Part 1: Introduction to the cardiovascular system
Section  1 Cardiovascular history and physical examinationNicholas Boon
Section  2 Developmental biology of the heartMiguel Torres
Section  3 Functional anatomy of the heartYen Ho
Section  4 Cardiovascular physiologyGuido Grassi
Section  5 Cardiovascular pharmacologyFaiez Zannad
Section  6 AnticoagulationRaffaele DeCaterina
Section  7 Epidemiology and global burdenSumeet Chugh

Part 2: Investigations
Section  8 ElectrocardiogramAntonio Bayes de Luna
Section  9 Chest radiographyChristian Herold
Section 10 Cardiac ultrasoundFrank Flachskampf
Section 11 Cardiovascular magnetic resonanceDudley Pennell
Section 12 Cardiovascular computed tomographyStephan Achenbach
Section 13 Nuclear cardiology and positron ­emission tomographyPhilipp Kaufman
Section 14 Invasive imaging – haemodynamicsCarlo di Mario
Section 15 Selection of imaging techniquesJeroen Bax

Part 3: Heart diseases
Section 16 Genetics of CV diseasesHeribert Schunkert
Section 17 Congenital heart disease (GUCH)John E. Deanfield
Section 18 Prevention in cardiovascular disease and rehabilitationMassimo Piepoli
Section 19 Diabetes mellitus metabolics syndromeLars Ryden
Section 20 Heart and the brainHans-Christoph Diener
Section 21 Cardiovascular problems in chronic ­kidney diseaseChristoph Wanner
Section 22 Erectile dysfunctionCharalambos ­Vlachopoulos
Section 23 Lung diseaseMartin Cowie
Section 24 Gastrointestinal diseaseGerhard Rogler
Section 25 Rheumatoid arthritis and the heartThomas F. Lüscher
Section 26 Rheumatic heart diseaseFerande Peters
Section 27 Cardio-oncologyJohn Groarke
Section 28 HIVNombulelo Magula
Section 29 Acute coronary syndromesStefan James
Section 30 Takotsubo syndromeChristian Templin
Section 31 Chronic ischaemic heart diseaseWilliam Wjins
Section 32 Myocardial diseasePerry Elliott
Section 33 Pericardial diseaseYehuda Adler
Section 34 Tumours of the heartGaetano Thiene
Section 35 Valvular heart diseaseHelmut Baumgartner
Section 36 Infective endocarditisGilbert Habib
Section 37 Heart failureJohn McMurray, Thomas Lüscher
Section 38 BradycardiaGiuseppe Boriani
Section 39 SyncopeMichele Brignole
Section 40 Supraventricular tachycardiasCarina Blomström-Lundqvist
Section 41 Atrial fibrillationJohn A. Camm
Section 42 Ventricular tachycardiaBrian Olshansky
Section 43 Sudden cardiac deathGerhard Hindricks

Part 4: Vascular disease
Section 44 Systemic hypertensionBryan Williams
Section 45 Pulmonary hypertensionMarc Humbert
Section 46 Diseases of the aortaRaimund Erbel
Section 47 Trauma to the cardiovascular systemChristoph Nienaber
Section 48 Non-cardiac surgerySteen Kristensen
Section 49 Peripheral arterial diseasesVictor Aboyans
Section 50 Venous thromboembolismStavros Konstantinides
Section 51 Venous diseaseSebastien Schellong

Part 5: Specific populations – gender and race
Section 52 Cardiovascular disease in ­womenNoel Bairey Merz
Section 53 Pregnancy and heart diseaseVera Regitz-Zagrosek
Section 54 EthnicityGregory Lip

Part 6 Other aspects
Section 55 Sports and heart diseaseAntonio Pelliccia
Section 56 ElderlyFranz H. Messerli and
Tomasz Grodzicki
Section 57 Precision medicinePaulus Kirchhof
Section 58 Decision-making and the heart teamPatrick W. Serruys
Section 59 Psychological factors and heart diseaseSusanne Pedersen
Section 60 Interpretation of clinical trialsJohn Cleland
Section 61 EnvironmentThomas Münzel
Section 62 Occupational and regulatory aspectsDemos Katritsis
Section 63 Economics and cost-effectivenessLorenzo Mantovani

Part 7: Appendices
Appendix 1 Cardiovascular disease risk estimation
Appendix 2 Patient reported outcome measures

Interaction with ESC Guidelines

A further major new aspect of ESC CardioMed is its alignment with the ESC guidelines. Many leaders in the field, as well as the users of the ESC guidelines,have felt for some time that the documents were too long and difficult to read and it was hard to find the main message. Therefore, the editors of ESC CardioMed came together with the ESC guidelines Committee and its chairman Stephan Windecker and ­decided to gradually bring the two products together. To that end it is envisaged that the ESC CardioMed will provide the background knowledge such as mechanisms of disease, epidemiology and describe the trials in more detail, while the ESC guidelines will focus primarily on the recommendations. Examples of this synergy are the direct links between ESC CardioMed and the most recent ESC Guidelines on Valvular Heart Disease and on Peripheral Arterial Disease published in the European Heart Journal. This concept will make the ESC guidelines more readable and digestible and still provide the full information through the links with ESC CardioMed. This process will take some time to be completed but is currently ongoing as new ESC Guidelinesare being developed.
A print version will be published early in 2019 (fig. 3).
Figure 3: Print version of the ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, Oxford University Press, 2019.
The editors and the leaders of the European Society of Cardiology involved in this project do hope that ESC CardioMed will be frequently used by our cardiologists around the world and will turn out to be essential in their daily practice.

Published under the copyright license.

"Attribution - Non-Commercial - NoDerivatives 4.0"

No commercial reuse without permission.

See: emh.ch/en/emh/rights-and-licences/

 

 

To the top