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Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the western world. Parallel to advances in patient care, there is a deep revolution in the field of diagnostics for the whole spectrum of heart diseases. Currently, there is awareness of the exceptional recent spread of “new” diagnostic tools. able to drive the right therapeutic approach. In this context, the course deals with state-of-art of diagnostics in cardiology even through integration with the multiple branches of cardiology and with the therapeutic approach. It is proposed as an open and interesting forum for sharing experiences and developing highly educational paths thanks to the active participation and fervent support of a superb international panel of experts. The main topics are represented by valvular diseases, infective endocarditis, stable coronary artery diseases, hypertension mediated organ damage, electrophysiology and cardiac electrostimulation, cardiomyopathies, sport, and artificial intelligence.
On the other hand, it is equally true that technological development runs at a higher pace compared to the capacity to fully exploit its potential. All diagnostics employed in cardiac field have been leaving a fast growth guided by an efficient interplay with positive implications on cardiac disease overview, diagnosis, and treatment. This is true for two-dimensional (2D), spectral and color Doppler, tissue Doppler, real-time three-dimensional (3D) transthoracic and transesophageal, speckle tracking techniques which traced the remarkable history of innovation in echocardiography, for nuclear
cardiology which have revealed details on the basic pathophysiology of ischemic heart diseases and holds unique capability of absolute myocardial blood flow estimation, for cardiac magnetic resonance and its 3D full volume acquisition, T1 and T2 mapping sequences and the so splendid 4D flow cine, and for cardiac computed tomography where coronary plaque imaging has reached high levels of detail
and where stress technique and derived functional information go beyond what we could imagine only few years ago. This course has the main purpose to contribute to the cultural growth necessary for a
rational and effective clinical application of the new technologic armamentarium.