Cardiologia Croatica. 2020;15(1-2)

Muhamed Zuko, Alina Fazlić, Elma Sokić Begović, Enida Halvadžić, Sanela Halilović Šuškić

About 0.5% of the population have schizophrenia and are thus at increased risk of death. The consequences of disordered physiological processes in the body lead to a reduction in life span of up to twenty years. Poor eating habits and lifestyles lead to more frequent occurrence of metabolic syndrome, and antipsychotics are one of the main causes of diabetes and hyperlipidemia. Psychiatric patients are often exposed to discrimination, resulting in poorer social acceptance and poorer health care. These people often have low or no income and are unemployed and socially excluded. The aim of our study was to determine the incidence of unrecognized myocardial infarction in patients with schizophrenia and whether the patients have been treated with appropriate medication such as acetylsalicylic acid, beta-blockers, ace inhibitors, statins, etc. The study included patients diagnosed with schizophrenia hospitalized at the Psychiatric Hospital of Canton Sarajevo. A total of 605 patients were treated. Scarring was indicated on electrocardiogram examination in 11.85% patients, 56.25% of whom were men and 43.75% women. The youngest patient with ECG-indicated scarring was a man aged 37, while the oldest was also a man aged 67. The average life expectancy of patients with scarring indicated on the electrocardiogram was 53 years. In order to prevent cardiac incidents, it is necessary to raise awareness in patients with schizophrenia regarding to lifestyle and dietary habits and to perform regular health examinations in this population.

Nenad Lakušić, Gordana Kamenečki, Ivana Sopek Merkaš, Duško Cerovec, Krunoslav Fučkar, Ivo Darko Gabrić, Matias Trbušić, Jasna Čerkez Habek

In addition to the somatic consequences of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) that include different levels of intolerance to exertion, incapacity for work, symptoms of chronic heart failure, angina pectoris, the manifestation of various arrhythmias, etc., the development of a whole range of psychosomatic and mental disorders is also possible already in the early subacute and chronic phases of the disease, and if these mental disorders are not actively treated in a timely fashion they can contributed to unwanted outcomes and increased mortality in this group of patients. ACS is associated with chronic stress, anxiety, and depression and can be a trigger for later development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with an average prevalence rate of 15% in patients with ACS. Several studies have shown that patients with symptoms of PTSD associated with ACS, especially if untreated, have increased mortality and higher rates of myocardial reinfarction. Since PTSD associated with ACS or cardiac surgery can be neglected or underestimated, the aim of this review was to raise awareness about this issue that is present in everyday clinical practice.

Mario Ivanuša

Articles from the Cardiologia Croatica journal from the year 2014 onward are now available in the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) bibliometric indicator! The journal has been placed in the Q4 quartile and has an SJR of 0.111. More detailed data can be found in **Table 1** and the following link: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100853875&tip=sid&clean=0. ### TABLE 1: Ranking of Croatian journals from the Medicine category in the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) bibliometric indicator (actively included journals as of November 25, 2019). Adapted from https://www.scimagojr.com/ . | **Rank** | **Title** | **SJR** | **SJR Best Quartile** | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Biochemia Medica | 0,869 | Q2 | | 2 | Croatian Medical Journal | 0,514 | Q2 | | 3 | Acta Dermatovenerologica Croatica | 0,38 | Q3 | | 4 | Arhiv za Higijenu Rada i Toksikologiju | 0,358 | Q3 | | 5 | ADMET and DMPK | 0,326 | Q3 | | 6 | Psychiatria Danubina | 0,319 | Q3 | | 7 | Acta Pharmaceutica | 0,314 | Q3 | | 8 | Acta Clinica Croatica | 0,246 | Q3 | | 9 | Periodicum Biologorum | 0,228 | Q3 | | 10 | Socijalna Psihijatrija | 0,204 | Q4 | | 11 | AMHA - Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica | 0,185 | Q3 | | 12 | Hrvatska Revija Za Rehabilitacijska Istrazivanja | 0,174 | Q4 | | 13 | Alcoholism and Psychiatry Research | 0,173 | Q3 | | 14 | Collegium Antropologicum | 0,162 | Q3 | | 15 | Sigurnost | 0,146 | Q4 | | 16 | Lijecnicki Vjesnik | 0,134 | Q4 | | 17 | Medicus | 0,134 | Q4 | | 18 | Acta Medica Croatica | 0,126 | Q4 | | 19 | Signa Vitae | 0,119 | Q4 | | **20** | **Cardiologia Croatica** | **0,111** | **Q4** | | 21 | Medicina Fluminensis | 0,106 | Q4 | | 22 | Paediatria Croatica | 0,106 | Q4 | | 23 | Infektoloski Glasnik | 0,105 | Q4 | | 24 | Jahr | 0,102 | Q4 | | 25 | Libri Oncologici | 0,101 | Q4 | | 26 | Paediatria Croatica, Supplement | 0,101 | Q4 | | 27 | Reumatizam | 0,101 | Q4 | | 28 | Gynaecologia et Perinatologia | 0,1 | Q4 | | 29 | Medica Jadertina | 0,1 | Q4 | The SJR indicator ranks a total of 24701 journals, and Cardiologia Croatica is in 21671st place. SJR has ranked 161 Croatian journals, among which Cardiologia Croatica is in 125th place. Among journals in the Medicine category, Cardiologia Croatica ranks 6451st out of 7244, and in the Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine category our journal ranks 319th out of 357 journals. We would like to thank all our authors, and we hope that this news will increase interest in article submission to our journal. In order to further advance our journal in SRJ and other indexes (1, 2) we expect new articles at kardio@kardio.hr, and previously published articles should be quoted in future articles.

Lucija Bilinovac, Iva Kurjaković, Jurica Vuković, Juraj Jug, Martina Lovrić-Benčić, Ingrid Prkačin

Hypertensive crisis is defined as systolic pressure higher than 180 mmHg or diastolic pressure higher than 120 mmHg and can be the first manifestation of arterial hypertension. In a hypertensive emergency there is evidence of organ damage in addition to severe blood pressure elevation, while in hypertensive urgency there is no organ damage. Patients with hypertensive crisis require thorough clinical assessment to exclude secondary causes of arterial hypertension. Pulse wave velocity is the measure of arterial stiffness which is directly connected to cardiovascular risk and hypertension-mediated organ damage. The aim of this study was to show the measurement of arterial stiffness in an emergency room setting as a noninvasive method of assessing cardiovascular risk in patients with hypertensive urgency. Arterial stiffness was measured for all patients with a noninvasive method using the Agedio B900 device operating on the principle of oscillometry. This study showed that the patients presenting to the Emergency Room with hypertensive urgency had higher pulse wave velocity values when compared with the reference range and to patients with resistant hypertension. Noninvasive measurement of arterial stiffness is a novel method in the diagnostic algorithm for patients with hypertensive crisis.

Ivana Sopek Merkaš, Krunoslav Fučkar, Dora Cerovec, Nenad Lakušić, Ljubica Vincelj Šalković, Duško Cerovec, Igor Šesto

Stress cardiomyopathy is an entity of unknown etiology characterized by transient systolic dysfunction of the left ventricle and regional wall motion abnormality which suggest myocardial infarction, but with an absence of angiographic evidence of obstructive coronary artery disease. Patients present with chest pain or/and dyspnea, while ECG changes are similar to acute myocardial infarction with ST-elevation. An important factor in the development of stress cardiomyopathy are high catecholamine levels in the blood as a result of the hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system caused by a stressful event. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes muscle weakness and ultimately ends in death due to respiratory muscle paralysis and respiratory failure. High catecholamine levels and increased sympathetic activity have been described in patients with ALS, which suggests that ALS is a risk factor for developing stress cardiomyopathy. In this article, we present a patient at an advanced stage of ALS who developed stress cardiomyopathy.