Myocardial Adenoviral Vector Delivery for Cardiovascular Gene Therapy

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in industrialized countries and despite major progress in drug development, morbidity and mortality has not significantly changed over the last couple of decades. Today, still more than half a million people are diagnosed with chronic heart failure (HF) each year in the United States (1 ,2 ). Interestingly, efforts to reduce risk factors have not yet lead to major reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and HF in particular. However, for some probable high-risk factors, more long-term studies may be required. Nevertheless, new therapeutic strategies are clearly needed to help combat cardiovascular disease and more importantly, HF.