Readers' choice: hot papers downloaded in 2006.

The Editorial Team at Cardiovascular Research is always interested in exploring trends in the literature and finding out what topics are of current interest in cardiology and vascular biology. One way we do this is to occasionally monitor which articles published in CVR are most often downloaded as full-text papers. With an average of 50,000 requests for CVR titles per month in 2006, a figure that has increased almost threefold over the past 4 years, we are in a good position to analyze the data. The most-downloaded review articles published in Car-diovascular Research in 2006 are shown in Table 1. The articles generating the greatest interest were those published in Spotlight Issues: the Spotlight on Matrix Metalloprotei-Table 1 Most-downloaded review articles in 2006 Article title a Author(s) Downloads b Ref. 17 Matrix metalloproteinases regulate migration, proliferation, and death of vascular smooth muscle cells by degrading matrix and non-matrix substrates (S) Newby, A.C. 949 [17] 18 Statins in the treatment of chronic heart failure: Biological and clinical considerations 20 Mitochondria and ischemia-reperfusion injury of the heart: Fixing a hole (S) a (S) designates article that was a contribution to a Spotlight Issue; (RF) indicates Review Focus article. b Refers to number of requests for full-text downloads during the first 6 months of online publication.