The year in cardiology: aorta and peripheral circulation

Abstract : Similar to previous years,1–3the current article reviews groundbreak-ing science published 2019 in the area of aortic and peripheral arterialdiseases (PAD) as well as venous thromboembolic disease (VTE)that will affect our daily clinical practice. With the growing recogni-tion of PAD, it will be necessary to consolidate imprecisions in ter-minology. Many are used to the acronym PAD for atheroscleroticdisease of the lower extremity arteries. Others have used the sameacronym to qualify atherosclerotic disease of the lower extremityarteries and carotid arteries. In the current article and in line with theEuropean Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines,4we have stringent-ly used the specific terms lower extremity arterial disease (LEAD)and reserved PAD as the umbrella term encompassing all arterial dis-eases other than aorta and coronaries.