Inflammation is a common mechanism involved in ischemic diseases such as peripheral, cardiac, and cerebral artery diseases. Looking for a paradigm of the involvement of inflammation in vascular ischemic events, myocardial infarction is the primary cause of death and hospitalization in developed countries. Even though the current standard therapy reduces acute myocardial infarction mortality, the long-term outcome of patients is not improved and they continue to face reinfarction events and/or anomalous left ventricular remodeling and heart failure. At the cardiac level, tissues show structural changes characterized by unrestrained digestion of extracellular matrix and excessive fibrosis in which the immune system and inflammation play a crucial role by interacting with the local damaged tissues through resident and recruited leukocytes. In particular, postmyocardial infarction repair is crucial to survival and recruited inflammatory cells remove debris and facilitate the repair process but, at the same time, exaggerated inflammation may also inhibit healing leading to adverse events.

Following a recent view, the different immune cell subsets involved act as messengers implicated in novel inflammatory networks that link different organ systems.

We invite authors to contribute to this special issue with original research and review articles aimed at understanding the meaning of specific cellular subsets or soluble factors involved either in the preliminary stages of the disease or in the reparative processes of ischemic vascular events. We also encourage submission of manuscripts on both basic studies and clinical studies.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Role of specific cell subsets and soluble mediators in myocardial/cerebral infarction
• Mechanisms of stem-cells recruitment in cardiac reparative processes
• Insights into ischemic events associated with other primary diseases including both type 1 and type 2 diabetes
• Role of exosomes and noncoding small RNAs in mediating cell communication and recruitment in ischemic diseases
• Translational and clinical studies aiming at evaluating the role of cytokine/chemokines and growth factors for the treatment of ischemic diseases