Novel Biomarkers and Treatments of Cardiac Diseases

Abstract

Cardiac diseases are mainly caused by malfunction of or injuries to the hearts. Although significant advances have been made during the past decades to improve the successful rate of treatments of these diseases, they still remain the top leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. Currently, cardiac diseases are defined according to the traditional system- or organ-based classification and the identification of diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers has been focused on the heart. Therefore, the “golden standard” biomarkers are mainly cardiac muscle-related. For example, the conventional troponin (cTn) has been widely utilized for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction in the clinics. However, multiple limitations exist with clinical applications of these types of biomarkers. The ELISA based cTn detection assay is time consuming, and the dynamics of the biomarkers are not sensitive enough to represent the development of the diseases. Clearly, there is an urgent need for identifying sensitive, specific biomarkers of different types of cardiac diseases and development of new therapies for this unmet medical need. In this special issue, we have assembled a series of articles of reviews, perspectives, and original contributions from experts in current research of novel biomarkers and treatments of cardiac diseases in both basic research and clinical practice.