LAUSR

Among the articles published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (EJCI) in 2021, COVID19related papers are still the most impacting ones.1– 3 We believe that COVID19 pandemic both in real life and in scientific Journals such as EJCI will certainly remain a hot topic in 2023. In fact, we believe that the evolution of COVID19 pandemic deserves additional indepth studies potentially clarifying its manifestations and consequences worldwide. As an example, the rate of COVID19 reinfections that was quite low as reported by Pilz et al. till early 20212 seems to increase and might impact our lives again in the coming months since the writing of the current editorial (December 2022). A better knowledge of COVID19related pathophysiological mechanisms will certainly help clinicians and the whole health community to develop effective strategic plans to get prepared for a sustainable future with COVID19. A second hottopic research area of interest for EJCI will be represented by both cardiovascular and oncological diseases. Acute cardiovascular events, heart failure and cancer are known major causes of mortality worldwide. COVID19 pandemic has tremendously delayed both primary and secondary prevention visits, thus worsening health performance and increasing the burden on patients and health systems. In order to bridge the existing gap because of the COVID19 pandemic, original research articles, reviews and metaanalyses on cardiovascular or oncological research areas are more than welcome for EJCI. We want to stress that not only clinical but also basic and translational science is of great interest to EJCI. For sure, final acceptance will be based on a peerreview process that can be fasttracked for particular highimpact articles. A third hot topic for EJCI comes from a completely different view regarding the management of patient care. First, the costs of patient care are increasing tremendously every year. Second, we have enough medical doctors but a big shortage of health care personnel both nurses and technicians. This human resource problem has a direct negative impact on our capacity in the emergency room, hospital admittance and operating theatre. Our incompetence in patient care was already there but became transparent during the COVID pandemic. It is unacceptable that patients are dying on the waiting list for treatment for chronic conditions in our welldeveloped and wealthy societies. It is obvious that the increasing costs are not only driven by the aging population and very costeffective treatment modalities such as device and advanced pharmacological therapy (heart failure, cancer immunology therapy, biologicals in rheumatology), but also cuttingedge novel geneticallybased opportunities such as COVID19 RNA vaccines and other very promising upcoming therapeutical options. It is obvious that appropriate political decisions are necessary for better management and financial support of patient care. For healthy aging, it is crucial to focus on prevention from the very beginning of life from the early pregnancy till our last breath. Successful prevention strategies will help everyone and will help to diminish inequalities in our society and maybe around the world. Financial investment for population and patient care management is necessary, as everyone deserves a good quality of life. So, smart solutions in patient care are important to improve the (cost)effectiveness of our work. As an example, we want to mention a recent publication in EJCI regarding the management of patients with atrial fibrillation by MazónRamos et al.4 An excellent collaboration between general practitioner and cardiologist using a shared electronic dossier improves the start of anticoagulation treatment tremendously. Out of the box thinking and collaboration on different levels in our facility, country and worldwide is necessary to fight the future expectations of a healthy living. The lessons we learned from the COVID pandemic are very helpful in this regard. So, we also welcome articles regarding the prevention and management of our health care system for publication in EJCI. As Editors of a scientific Journal historically considering articles from Internal and General Medicine domain, we would suggest an additional hottopic area for EJCI to attract position papers and guidelines to help physicians to manage frail patients with several comorbidities. Many patients hospitalized such as in Internal Medicine Wards