Dear Colleagues,
It is indeed a great pleasure and honor for me to present to you the second issue of the Indian Heart Journal for the current year 2010. At the outset I express my gratitude and thanks to the reviewers and the editorial board for their outstanding support and unstinted support through my second year as the Honorary Editor of the Indian Heart Journal.
Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attraction.”
This current issue highlights on the clinical implications and usefulness of beta-blockers in today’s clinical practice. Beta-blockers have had a long history of being one of the most prominent classes of drugs in the cardiovascular therapeutics. They remain as the mainstay therapy in the setting of ischemic heart disease, heart failure, uncomplicated hypertension and arrhythmias, as their importance in these compelling indications are well established. It has been documented by J. M Cruickshank of Great Britain in his state of art paper that coronary heart disease and hypertension are the two most common causes of heart failure and that beta-blockers are the cornerstone of therapy in systolic heart failure. Cardioselective beta-1 adrenergic blockers like bisoprolol, metoprolol and carvedilol on an ACEI background have reduced all cause mortality by 35%. Also that bisoprolol has proved to be “non-inferior” to ACEI in reducing all-cause mortality and is probably superior in reducing sudden death. Prakash C. Deedwania has elaborated in detail about the current status of beta-blockers in hypertension therapy. Other major indications regarding the use of beta-blockers in left ventricular regression, peri-operatively, coronary artery disease with or without hypertension, arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy have been covered in great detail. However many physicians appear to be reluctant to use beta-blockers in line with current recommendations because of concerns about their safety and tolerability as highlighted by Erland Erdmann of Germany. Patients with COPD, Diabetes mellitus, peripheral vascular disease, sexually active men and elderly can be prescribed beta-blockers, provided appropriate precautions are taken as most of the side effects are dose dependent. Thus, a policy of “start low and go slow” can therefore avoid problems.
As Albert Einstein once said, “The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.” Thus besides clinical research articles on Beta-blockers, there are brief communications, interesting case reports, seminar and land mark trials which are of paramount clinical relevance. Let us work together to make the academic feast of the Indian Heart Journal a great success.

Dr. H. K. Chopra
Honorary Editor