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Cardiology is
a medical speciality that deals with the study of heart diseases (both
organic, affecting the valves, the myocardium or coronary circulation,
and those referring to disorders in the cardiac rhythm) and of the
impact that other systemic illnesses (vascular or not) may have on
this organ.
Without doubt, and above all in the presence of the increasing growth
of heart disease in the developed world, cardiology is currently the
medical speciality that is most in demand, with regard to both diagnosis
and therapy and, principally, prevention.
For this reason, the technical advancement related to this speciality
(parallel to the development of new increasingly more accurate, safe
and non-invasive image diagnosis techniques) over the last few decades
has been nothing less than spectacular. At the same time, treatment
techniques (which are applied to the myocardium as well as to valves,
the coronary arteries and the large arteries leaving the heart) have
developed, and they have been perfected to such an extent that we
cardiologists must regularly update our knowledge in this respect.
Within the revolution regarding new types of treatment in the field
of cardiology, not only have new drugs given
hope to millions of patients who only a few decades ago would have
had a terminal prognosis, but also the great advances made in the
different surgical techniques have radically changed the future of
these patients.
In fact, cardiology is inexorably linked to heart surgery, given the
enormous importance that for many patients the latter represents,
either in the short or long term, for their cardiological diseases.
Nevertheless, and based on hundreds of clinical studies carried out
on different groups of patients, we know that
the principal challenge of cardiology this century is prevention,
which is the best of the tools available to reduce as far as possible
the risk of suffering certain cardiological ailments. Hence
the cardiologist's advice has become highly important in this respect,
very often in relation to biological factors or variables that are
also monitored by other medical specialities (endocrinology, nephrology,
etc.), such as cholesterol, diabetes, arterial hypertension, etc.
Nevertheless, it should be remembered that any advance in medicine
(in the technical sense of the term) may, unfortunately, involve a
certain dehumanisation of the figure of the physician. Even though
it is true that techniques for diagnosis and treatment can offer us
detailed, thorough information of our patients' illnesses, it is equally
true, or more so, that a good clinical history,
a good physical examination or a simple electrocardiogram (ECG) of
the patient can afford us the opportunity of making a diagnosis that,
on many occasions, will be very precise.
The Luis Banchs Cardiology Clinic has been operating for a number
of years in Mataró, with the aim of bringing the cardiological
clinic and patients closer together, and, at the same time, offering
the latter appropriate prevention measures. In its two surgeries patients
can receive attention with the most up-to-date diagnostic techniques
available, and, if necessary, attend those centres which, for obvious
reasons, have greater technological capabilities (where, for example,
resonance imaging, coronary imaging, etc. can be carried out) and
which act as true centres of reference for our patients.
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