Journal of Rare Cardiovascular Diseases

Dear Readers,
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
It is a pleasure to deliver at your hand the next (already the fourth!) issue of your quarterly Journal of Rare Cardiovascular Diseases. We are happy that, with your continued submissions, we are able to publish the journal regularly, and that the Journal has established its natural presence in the family of cardiovascular journals. Fulfilling the principal aim of the Journal, the submissions to this issue have been accepted on a key basis of their relevance to your expanding knowledge and management of your Rare Cardiovascular Disease (RCD) patients. We begin with a review on Ebstein anomaly by a prominent paediatric cardiac surgeon, Dr Jacek Pajak, who performed complex surgeries in a some key centers in the world prior to taking the position of the Head of Paeditric Cardiac Sugery in the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice. Ebstein anomaly patients pose significant decision‑making challenges in every‑day clinical practice of RCD. We encourage you to consul this review for several helpful treatment‑type selection indicators that include patient‑specific features, and for a contemporary discussion of some novel surgical correction techniques. The original contribution that follows is on another clinical trouble‑maker – arrhythmias in adult patients after total correction of tetralogy of Fallot (Agnieszka Żygadło and colleagues from the Krakow RCD Centre, CRCD). Having studied a relatively large cohort of adult patients with corrected tetralogy of Fallot, the authors have come up with several predictors of ventricular and artial arrhythmias in this group; they also suggest some management options that we hope you will find useful in managing your patients. Case reports include (i) successful pregnancy in a patient with Turner syndrome (no, not a mistake) after surgery for coarctation of the aorta but now with a large ascending aorta aneurysm (Lidia Tomkiewicz‑Pająk and colleagues); (ii) decision‑making in a young man with double‑chambered left ventricle (KatarzynaMizia‑Stec and colleagues); (iii) challenges of ablating repetitive, non‑tolerated, supraventricular tachycardia of 190 bpm in a 4‑month pregnant woman following in‑vitro fertilization (Marek Jastrzębski and colleagues), and (iv) a series of myxomas of the heart (Hanna Dziedzic‑Oleksy and colleagues).
The case reports published in this issue reflect, again, one fundamental and much‑welcomed feature of the RCD field: multi‑specialty collaboration that enables some clinical successes that, until recently, remained unimaginable.
The final article in this issue is a report by Dr Paweł Rubiś on the annual ESC Congress (Amsterdam) RCD‑dedicated Symposium that the Krakow CRCD organized this year, similar to the events in 2011 and 2012. The symposium, this year again, was not a “Krakow” event – it included lectures and discussions by leading European experts (such as Professor Ottavio Alfieri, Professor John GF Cleland, Professor Deddo Moertl, Professor Sabine Pankuweit), and was very highly‑attended by cardiologists from Europe and other corners of the world. The network of RCD centers is expanding bringing more understanding, better mutual support and –ultimately– consistent high‑quality care for Patients affected by rare cardiovascular diseases and improved support for their Families. I am pleased to tell you that our efforts to continue with a traditional ESC Symposium in 2014 in Barcelona are already underway. Thus, when making your 2014 congress plans, please make bear in mind that your RCD interests will be high on the horizon there. Finally, when reading manuscripts published in this issue, you will noticed our continued use of RCD codes closing the titles of Journal publications. While the first Krakow RCD classification is receiving more and more favorable reviews, its implementation, aimed to introduce clarity and facilitate grouping of experts, is – as you can witness – continued! Please continue your support to your Journal. We look forward to your submissions in the form of original articles, reviews or RCD case reports that will not only highlight your work and experience to your colleagues in the field and will make it highly‑referenced.

Piotr Podolec
Editor‑in‑Chief
Journal of Rare Cardiovascular Diseases

Classification of Rare Cardiovascular Diseases