The role of the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia in the new era of non-invasive cardiovascular imaging.

Mailing Address: Carlos E. Rochitte • Av. Dr. Enéas de Carvalho Aguiar 44 Andar AB Ressonância & Tomografia Cerqueira César 05403-000 São Paulo, SP, Brasil E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Manuscript received December 08, 2011; revised manuscript receibed December 08, 2011; accepted December 08, 2011. We witness the “Renaissance” of cardiovascular imaging. Non-invasive cardiovascular imaging has concomitantly shown the solidification and maturation of more traditional imaging techniques and the exponential growth of the modalities most recently introduced in the armamentarium. The integration of imaging techniques has also allowed a more rational and effective use of specific imaging methods, favoring a more accurate diagnosis at a lower cost and with less overlap of exams. Smart algorithms for both the combined and non-combined selection of noninvasive exams in cardiology have allowed a much better cost-effectiveness ratio for establishing the final diagnosis, currently a crucial factor for all health care systems in both Brazil and the rest of the world. In Brazil, as in many other countries and following an international trend, the Department of Cardiovascular Imaging of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology has been created. It harmonically integrates professionals of the areas of echocardiography, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance imaging, and cardiovascular computed tomography. This multimodality approach has helped the rapid progression of knowledge and the continuous development of the area. Integration has been proposed for a while with seminal publications describing models of integration that enable better efficiency1. Another development of this truly new subspecialty, cardiovascular imaging, is the launch in both Europe and the United States of scientific journals dedicated to cardiovascular imaging derived from the highest-impact scientific journals in the world, such as the Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging, JACC Cardiovascular Imaging, and European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging (to be launched at the beginning of 2012). Of the Brazilian journals indexed in Pubmed, the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia has published a significant number of valuable national and international contributions in the area of cardiovascular imaging.