Arterial and cardiac aging: major shareholders in cardiovascular disease enterprises (Part I and II)
E. G. Lakatta, D. Levy

This outstanding review of cardiovascular aging argues that the powerful effect of increasing age on cardiovascular risk is based on the changes in cardiovascular structure and function with time that occur throughout the animal kingdom, altering the substrate on which disease mechanisms are superimposed...

Aging is associated with endothelial dysfunction in healthy men years before the age-related decline in women
D. S. Celermajer, K. E. Sorensen, D. J. Spiegelhalter, D. Georgakopoulos, J. Robinson, J. E. Deanfield

Endothelial dysfunction is recognized as a powerful predictor of cardiovascular events...

Prevention of stroke by antihypertensive drug treatment in older persons with isolated systolic hypertension. Final results of the Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly Program (SHEP)
SHEP Cooperative Research Group

Isolated systolic hypertension (ISH), caused by the increase in arterial stiffness with advancing age, is the predominant form of hypertension in the elderly, present according to national surveys in upwards of 70% to 80% of patients above 70 years of age...

SSenescence and death of primitive cells and myocytes lead to premature cardiac aging and heart failure
C. Chimenti, J. Kajstura, D. Torella, K. Urbanek, H. Heleniak, C. Colussi, F. Di Meglio, B. Nadal-Ginard, A. Frustaci, A. Leri, et al

Many of us learned in medical school and accepted as fact that the adult heart is an end-organ incapable of self-regenerating...

Age-dependent impairment of angiogenesis
A. Rivard, J. E. Fabre, M. Silver, D. Chen, T. Murohara, M. Kearney, M. Magner, T. Asahara, J. M. Isner

It is now well established that age-dependent impairment of angiogenesis and vasculogenesis occurs throughout the animal kingdom...

Age and outcome with contemporary thrombolytic therapy. Results from the GUSTO-1 trial
H. D. White, G. I. Barbash, R. M. Califf, R. J. Simes, C. B. Granger, D. Weaver, N. S. Kleiman, P. E. Aylward, J. M. Gore, A. Vahanian, et al; GUSTO-I Investigators

No study has contributed more to our understanding of the natural history of acute ST-segment–elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) in the reperfusion era than the Global Utilization of Streptokinase and Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) for Occluded coronary arteries (GUSTO-1) trial, which randomized over 41 000 patients with acute STEMI to several thrombolytic regimens within 6 hours of symptom onset...

Age-related increase in mortality among patients with first myocardial infarctions treated with thrombolysis
A. A. Maggioni, A. Maseri, C. Fresco, M. G. Franzosi, F. Mauri, E. Santoro, G. Tognoni; Investigators of the Gruppo Italiano por lo Studio della Sopravvivenza nell’Infarto miocardico (GISSI-2)

Few studies affected how practitioners view elderly infarct patients than this analysis by the Gruppo Italiano por lo Studio della Sopravvivenza nell’Infarto miocardico 2 (GISSI 2) investigators...

Prognostic importance of physical examination for heart failure in non–ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes. The enduring value of Killip classification
U. N. Khot, G. Jia, D. J. Moliterno, A. M. Lincoff, M. B. Khot, R. A. Harrington, E. J. Topol

The Killip classification was initially described in 1967. In that landmark paper (Am J Cardiol. 1967;20:457-465), Killip recognized the importance of physical examination in the risk stratification of patients with a Q-wave myocardial infarction...

Effect of beta-blockade on mortality among high-risk and low-risk patients after myocardial infarction
S. S. Gottlieb, R. J. McCarter, R. A. Vogel

Well-performed randomized controlled trials versus placebo have shown that ß-blockade after acute myocardial infarction reduces mortality, sudden cardiac death, and reinfarction...

Coronary intervention for persistent occlusion after myocardial infarction
J. S. Hochman, G. A. Lamas, C. E. Buller, V. Dzavik, H. R. Reynolds, S. J. Abramsky, S. Forman, W. Ruzyllo, A. P. Maggioni, H. White, et al; Occluded Artery Trial Investigators

The primary treatment for patients with acute myocardial infarction is rapid opening of the infarct-related artery (IRA)...