BOOK REVIEW

Trials of Cardiovascular Therapeutics

TRIALS DE LA TERAPÉUTICA CARDIOVASCULAR

Mario Fitz maurice, sergio Brieva, Carolina etcheverry, Fernando Di tomasso
Writing coordinator: pablo merlo
9th edition / revised 2014
Buenos aires: gador; 2014. 1.135 páginas. isBn 978-987-23785-1-6

"Not for being known it loses worth."

We would quite agree after analyzing the 9th edi-tion of the book Trials of Cardiovascular Therapeutics 20 years after its original edition.

The authors have known to identify for more than two decades the cardiologist´s zest to consult randomized studies in order to gather consistent evidence upon which a great deal of our professional practice relies.

Even at that time, it was almost impossible to ad-equately grasp all the available information from the large profusion of trials, and the periodical search of studies, registries, data, statistical analyses of evidence and conclusions for the daily practice was a very fre-quent habit. Today, two decades after, this has increased exponentially.

Among medical specialties, cardiology has pioneered the production of randomized evidence and, therefore, the proliferation of trials and data generated the need to "classify" them for consultation. Frequently, the car-diologist remembered a certain trial for its appealing name rather than for its content due to the overwhelm-ing number of studies.

An outstanding point of this book is a conclusion, presented after the abstract of the study in question, written by an expert on the subject and on the analy-sis of the design and results of this type of trials. This constitutes an essential contribution to solve the difficulties in the interpretation of evidence arising from inclusion, endpoint, safety, general design and statistical method biases.

Considering all this, Dr. Mario Fitz Maurice and his team have achieved this 9th edition with more than a thousand pages of trials carefully organized by subjects and, interestingly, by study acronyms, simplifying search. Moreover, the information is presented clearly and con-cisely, so each study abstract has very good quality.

In conclusion, this work should belong to the refer-ence library of every physician treating cardiovascular diseases, contributing to improve the professional practice by providing valuable information to optimize therapy. We are therefore pleased of presenting it for diffusion.

Carlos Barrero ^MTSAC, Víctor Mauro ^MTSAC