Editorial

Apoptosis: a pivotal event or an epiphenomenon in the pathophysiology of heart failure? Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is an evolutionary conserved genetically programmed process by which mul-ticellular organisms regulate cell numbers. It is critical in development and in tissue homeostasis. Unlike necrosis, the process is active, energy requiring and precisely regulated. Apoptosis in cardiac development and disease Cardiac myocytes are by and large terminally diVerentiated and have a limited capacity for self renewal. It would there-fore seem that loss of a significant number of cardiomyo-cytes would have lasting adverse consequences. Apoptosis is, however, integral to normal cardiac development and is also important in the morphogenesis of the conductin