While pericardial disease has long been overlooked and misunderstood, the past 10 years have brought much-needed developments—leading to the 2025 European Society of Cardiology Guidelines for the management of myocarditis and pericarditis and the recent American College of Cardiology Guidance document. It is encouraging to see this field transform from reactive care to mechanism-guided, imaging-informed, and increasingly targeted therapy.
In this issue of the Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal, we offer our clinician readers comprehensive overviews of the latest advancements in diagnostics and therapeutics for pericardial disease while also including lesser-known topics such as the role of exercise and exercise restriction, pericarditis in patients with autoimmune disease, and medical therapy for constrictive pericarditis.
We are immensely grateful to our authors—many of whom are leading authorities in pericardial disease and have led the most impactful clinical trials and studies in this field. I personally extend my sincerest thanks to our guest editor for this issue, Dr. Maan Malahfji, whose commitment to the topic of pericardial disease has inspired us to create this invaluable issue. As he states in his introduction, “The topic of pericardial disease is often forgotten, but not in our journal!”
In addition to the useful information included here, I remind readers of the great variety of topics featured in the Journal archives. You also will find many learning resources in our Special Collections of videos, case reports, and interactive CME cases—and we invite you to submit your own case reports! If you haven’t already explored these options on our website or subscribed to receive our free e-newsletter, be sure to do that now.
Miguel A. Quiñones, MD, MACC, FASE
Editor-in-Chief
Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal
Winters Family Distinguished Centennial Chair
in Cardiovascular Education, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center