Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to share these peer-reviewed highlights from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2015 held in London, United Kingdom. This was a really exciting Congress! A record number of attendees (32 758) joined us in London, a reflection of the excellent scientific content submitted to the Congress. We chose to enlarge our scope this year by highlighting the interaction between the environment and the heart, and particularly pollution, as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We are proud to have brought together so many delegates and the latest research from all over the world, and hope to raise public awareness of these new cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Over the 5 days of the Congress, 28 Hot Lines, 18 Clinical Trial Updates, 18 Registry presentations, 5 new Clinical Practice Guidelines, and 4533 abstracts were presented. ESC Congress 365 is an enduring educational product that provides the videos, slides, abstracts, and reports of ESC Congress presentations through the ESC website. We see this as an important resource for physicians worldwide, and we aim for this resource to create interactive discussions among colleagues about what innovations are applicable in their particular settings.

The scope and quality of the abstracts presented continue to make ESC Congress an exciting and innovative forum in which advances in research can be translated into practical applications for clinicians. The articles selected for this issue of ESC Congress 2015 in Review, the official highlights report for ESC Congress 2015, represent the most newsworthy and cutting-edge items of relevance to a broad array of practitioners.

Some of the studies presented live at ESC Congress 2015 and in the pages of ESC Congress 2015 in Review will influence clinical practice and will allow us to better understand how to manage important conditions and how to devise new therapies. Resistant hypertension is a common clinical problem faced by both primary care clinicians and specialists. The results of the PATHWAY-2 trial showed that adding the diuretic spironolactone brings resistant hypertension under control in most patients, with better results than with other antihypertensive medications. These results have broad international relevance and applicability, establishing a clear hierarchy for drug treatment of resistant hypertension that may impact future treatment guidelines and clinical practice globally. The Hot Line session on diabetes mellitus/pharmacology focused on the correlation between diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Results from a prespecified analysis of the TECOS database do not suggest an increased risk of heart failure (HF) or related adverse events with sitagliptin in patients with type 2 diabetes and prevalent cardiovascular disease. These findings support the use of sitagliptin in these patients without concerns of worsening HF.

In addition to learning about the results of top late-breaking clinical trials in this dedicated highlights report, you will also find new information in selected, challenging areas of cardiovascular medicine, including atrial fibrillation interventional cardiology, and the clinical challenges associated with the use of anticoagulants.

We hope that the articles and practical perspectives contained in the pages of this edition of ESC Congress 2015 in Review will be useful in your clinical practice.

To access ESC Congress content (videos, slides, abstracts, and Congress reports) all year long, visit us online at www.escardio.org/365.

We wish you all a successful year and look forward to seeing you in Rome for ESC Congress 2016. For more information, please visit www.escardio.org/ESC2016.