International Congress on Electrocardiology 2010 in Lund, Sweden

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The 37th International Congress on Electrocardiology (ICE) was hosted in Lund, Sweden, in June 2010. After several weeks of gloomy Nordic spring weather, the sun finally decided to come out with self-reliance just when the ICE participants from more than 40 countries arrived. The blooming magnolias and the lilacs surrounding the congress venue are emblematic of Lund for this time of the year; Ljuba Bacharova beautifully captured this atmosphere in her watercolor, which can be enjoyed on the front cover of this issue.

As in previous years, the ICE 2010 covered a broad range of topics, ranging from basic cellular aspects to clinical applications. Special attention was devoted to atrial fibrillation, cardionephrology, computational cardiology, imaging in cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure, inherited arrhythmic disorders, and noninvasive risk stratification in ischemic heart disease. The Congress offered a more interdisciplinary perspective than usual, because many of the presentations were given by researchers in biomedical engineering. A large number of keynote lectures were delivered by well-known experts, providing excellent opportunities to learn more about the state-of-art in the above-mentioned areas. Ewa Soltysinska, Copenhagen, won the young investigator award with a contribution entitled “Left ventricular transmural gradient of Na⁺ channel expression and its electrophysiological correlates.” All congress abstracts are available electronically on the journal's Web site at http://www.jecgonline.com.

This issue of the Journal of Electrocardiology contains a selection of papers that were originally presented at the ICE 2010, but expanded from abstract into brief manuscripts and subjected to peer-review. These papers are indeed representative of the ICE, because they cover a broad range of topics in electrocardiology from computer modeling to animal experiments and clinical research. The importance of subtle ECG phenomena in clinical diagnosis was considered in several presentations, and 3 of these that either relate to T-wave alternans (Luca Mainardi et al and Gari Clifford et al) or heart rate turbulence (Krzysztof Szydlo et al) are here included.

Considering that the first practical dialysis machine was developed in Lund in the 1940s, it was particularly rewarding to organize a session on a new topic for the congress, that is, emerging techniques in cardionephrology. Martin Krüger et al offer an interesting modeling perspective on this topic in their study of alterations in atrial electrophysiology during hemodialysis.

A significant part of the scientific program was devoted to experimental research in electrocardiology. The paper by Marina Vaykshnorayte et al presents an elegantly designed experiment for the purpose of studying important relationships between key determinants of cardiac repolarization that plays an important role in the development of cardiac arrhythmias.

As co-presidents of the congress and on behalf of the ICE 2010 organizing committee, we express our appreciation and gratitude to all scientific program participants and sincerely hope that readers of this issue of the Journal of Electrocardiology will enjoy the included contributions. We also express our appreciation to Elin Trägårdh-Johansson and Olle Pahlm for their excellent editorial work that came with this issue.