Contemporary management of ventricular arrhythmias in heart failure.

Enhanced ventricular arrhythmogenesis is commonly experienced by patients in the end-stage of heart failure spectrum. A high burden of ventricular arrhythmias can affect the ventricular systolic function, lead to unexpected hospitalizations and further deteriorate the prognosis. Management of ventricular arrhythmias in this population is challenging. Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators are protective for the immediate termination of life-threatening arrhythmias but they have no impact in reducing the arrhythmic burden. Combination treatment with invasive (catheter ablation, mechanical hemodynamic support, sympathetic denervation) and noninvasive (antiarrhythmic drugs, medical therapy for heart failure, programming of implantable devices) therapies is commonly required. The aim of this review is to present the available therapeutic options, with main focus on recently published data for catheter ablation and provide a stepwise treatment approach.

Cardiometabolic Care: Assessing Patients with Diabetes Mellitus with No Overt Cardiovascular Disease in the Light of Heart Failure Development Risk.

The mechanisms leading to the development of heart failure (HF) in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients are multifactorial. Assessing the risk of HF development in patients with DM is valuable not only for the identification of a high-risk subgroup, but also equally important for defining low-risk subpopulations. Nowadays, DM and HF have been recognized as sharing similar metabolic pathways. Moreover, the clinical manifestation of HF can be independent of LVEF classification. Consequently, approaching HF should be through structural, hemodynamic and functional evaluation. Thus, both imaging parameters and biomarkers are important tools for the recognition of diabetic patients at risk of HF manifestation and HF phenotypes, and arrhythmogenic risk, and eventually for prognosis, aiming to improve patients' outcomes utilizing drugs and non-pharmaceutical cardioprotective tools such as diet modification.

Ketone bodies and the heart.

Ketone bodies are low chain organic substances with four carbon atoms, with ß-hydroxybutyric acid and acetone being the main ketone bodies in blood circulation. Under physiological conditions their levels are low while during conditions of oxidative stress, such as exercise, fasting state and acute illness, ketone body levels are increased. Recent findings have shown that in patients with heart failure their plasma concentration is increased. There is a positive correlation between increased energy metabolism of myocardial cells and the levels of ß-hydroxybutyric acid and acetone. Furthermore, it has been hypothesized that the mild ketosis caused by sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors is one of the possible pathogenetic mechanisms explaining the significant cardiovascular and renal benefits observed in patients with type 2 diabetes treated with these agents. The aim of the present review is to summarize the role of ketone bodies in both normal and pathological conditions, such as heart failure.