Stroke is currently one of the most common causes of death and disability in the world, and its pathophysiology is a complex process, involving the oxidative stress and inflammatory reaction. Unfortunately, no biochemical factors useful in the diagnostics and treatment of stroke have been clearly established to date. Therefore, researchers are increasingly interested in the inflammatory response triggered by cerebral ischemia and its role in the development of cerebral infarction. This article gives an overview of the available literature data concerning the role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in acute stroke. Detailed analysis of their role in cerebral circulation disturbances can also suggest certain immune response regulatory mechanisms aimed to reduce damage to the nervous tissue in the course of stroke.

Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death in the world. For almost 60 years, vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) were the mainstay of anticoagulation therapy, but in recent years direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have become the anticoagulant treatment of choice. DOACs were initially considered drugs with no significant food interactions; however, clinical observations from daily practice have proved otherwise as interactions with food ingredients have been reported. Food, dietary supplements or herbs may contain substances that, when administered concomitantly with DOACs, can potentially affect the plasma concentration of the drugs. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the clinical significance of drug–food interactions of DOACs, such as dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, edoxaban and betrixaban. Patients treated with anticoagulants should avoid products containing St. John’s wort and take special care with other food ingredients. As the interest in dietary supplements is on the rise, healthcare providers can contribute to the development of well-designed clinical trials on interactions between DOACs and food, and distribute sufficient knowledge about the proper use of these supplements among patients.

The year 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the confirmation of the neurotransmission phenomenon by Otto Loewi. Over the course of the hundred years, about 100 neurotransmitters belonging to many chemical groups have been discovered. In order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the confirmation of neurotransmitters, we present an overview of the first two endogenous gaseous transmitters i.e., nitric oxide, and carbon monoxide, which are often termed as gasotransmitters.

As the world produces exabytes of data, there is a growing need to find new methods that are more suitable for dealing with complex datasets. Artificial intelligence (AI) has significant potential to impact the healthcare industry, which is already on the road to change with the digital transformation of vast quantities of information. The implementation of AI has already achieved success in the domains of molecular chemistry and drug discoveries. The reduction in costs and in the time needed for experiments to predict the pharmacological activities of new molecules is a milestone in science. These successful applications of AI algorithms provide hope for a revolution in healthcare systems. A significant part of artificial intelligence is machine learning (ML), of which there are three main types—supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning. In this review, the full scope of the AI workflow is presented, with explanations of the most-often-used ML algorithms and descriptions of performance metrics for both regression and classification. A brief introduction to explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is provided, with examples of technologies that have developed for XAI. We review important AI implementations in cardiology for supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning and natural language processing, emphasizing the used algorithm. Finally, we discuss the need to establish legal, ethical, and methodical requirements for the deployment of AI models in medicine.

Dyslipidemia is listed among important cardiovascular disease risk factors. Treating lipid disorders is difficult, and achieving desirable levels of LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) is essential in both the secondary and primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. For many years, statins became the basis of lipid-lowering therapy. Nevertheless, these drugs are often insufficient due to their side effects and restrictive criteria for achieving the recommended LDL-C values. Even the addition of other drugs, i.e., ezetimibe, does not help one achieve the target LDL-C. The discovery of proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) discovery has triggered intensive research on a new class of protein-based drugs. The protein PCSK9 is located mainly in hepatocytes and is involved in the metabolism of LDL-C. In the beginning, antibodies against the PCSK9 protein, such as evolocumab, were invented. The next step was inclisiran. Inclisiran is a small interfering RNA (siRNA) that inhibits the expression of PCSK9 by binding specifically to the mRNA precursor of PCSK9 protein and causing its degradation. It has been noticed in recent years that siRNA is a powerful tool for biomedical research and drug discovery. The purpose of this work is to summarize the molecular mechanisms, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics of inclisiran and to review the latest research.

During a stroke, a series of biochemical and metabolic changes occur which eventually lead to the death of cells by necrosis or apoptosis. This is a multi-stage process involving oxidative stress and an inflammatory response from the first signs of occlusion of a blood vessel until the late stages of regeneration and healing of ischemic tissues. The purpose of the research was to assess the concentration of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α in the blood serum of patients with ischemic stroke (AIS) and to investigate their role as new markers in predicting functional prognosis after thrombolytic therapy. The researches have shown that the concentrations of the measured biomarkers were higher compared to the control group. Serum levels of IL-6 and THF-α before the initiation of intravenous thrombolysis were lower in the subgroup of patients with a favourable functional result (mRS: 0–2 pts) compared to the group of patients with an unfavourable functional result (mRS: 3–6 pts). A positive correlation was found between the concentration of IL-6 and TNF-α in patients with AIS during <4.5 h and on one day after the onset of stroke, which means that the concentration of IL-6 increases with the increase in TNF-α concentration. It has also been shown that higher levels of IL-6 in the acute phase of stroke and on the first and seventh days, and TNF-α during onset, were associated with poorer early and late prognosis in patients treated with intravenous thrombolysis. A relationship was found between the level of IL-6 and TNF-α in the subacute AIS and the severity of the neurological deficit. It has been shown that the investigated biomarkers may be a prognostic factor in the treatment of thrombolytic AIS.