What is Acute Unloading?

This supplement to the International Cardiology Review is devoted to the proceedings of the first annual A-CURE Symposium that was held in Rome, Italy, in August of 2016. The 1-day meeting brought together experts from a number of disciplines – including interventional cardiologists, heart failure specialists, cardiac surgeons, molecular biologists, and biomedical engineers – to discus the science behind and clinical applications of acute cardiac unloading. Over 100 physicians, clinical and pre-clinical researchers, basic researchers, medical students, post-doctoral scientists, and graduate students from 21 different countries were in attendance. The ICR Supplement features a number of the presentations from the Symposium describing the basic science underlying acute cardiac unloading, its clinical applications, and the opportunities in and challenges of performing clinical trials.