Looking for the honour and glory of being known by colleagues. Pending their work to have “high” impact factor and visibility. No one should pay for the honour and prestige… no one at all. Yet it is what is currently happening. SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS WRITING It is true that there is too much stringency by the reviewers of many journals of high impact factor. It is also true that must have a double-blind between authors and reviewers in all the editorials. Thus, the bias of a possible tendentiousness would be disappeared. I personally know how wonderful clinical works have been rejected for the sake of a more or less gratuitous rigorously. Conversely, I have seen non-rigorous,even inconsistent clinical work- sthat have been approved because these were signed by acclaimed authors. This should not be happening. A double-blind assessment is needed for any publication from any editorial. Maybe for this reason the aforementioned editorials (‘open access’) are taking advantage of these current circumstances. They buy vanity and sell publications. This must not be good for anyone. The authors of this manuscript have certified that they comply with the Principles of Ethical Publishing in the International Journal of Cardiology (Shewan and Coats 2010;144:1–2). 0167-5273/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijcard.2011.07.001 Utility of a short quality of life questionnaire to predict cardiovascular events Miguel-Angel Muñoz a,b, ⁎, Isaac Subirana c , Roberto Elosua c,d , María-Isabel Covas e,f , Jose-Miguel Baena-Diez a , Rafael Ramos g,h , Jose Maria Verdú a , Jaume Marrugat c a Primary Health Care Research Unit of Barcelona, Institut Català de la Salut and IDIAP-Jordi Gol, Barcelona, Spain b Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain c Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics Research Group, Research on Inflammatory and Cardiovascular Disorders Program (RICAD), IMIM, Barcelona, Spain d CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Barcelona, Spain e CARIN, Research on Inflammatory and Cardiovascular Disorders Program (RICAD), IMIM, Barcelona, Spain f CIBER CObesidad y Nutrición, Barcelona, Spain g Primary Health Care Research Unit of Girona, Institut Català de la Salut and IDIAP-Jordi Gol, Girona, Spain h University of Girona, Spain article info Article history: Received 1 July 2011 Accepted 3 July 2011 Available online 11 August 2011 Keywords: Cardiovascular diseases Health related quality of life Preventive medicine Primary care Since the current mathematical models does not allow us to explain completely the probability of suffering from a cardiovascular event, we carried out a study aimed at determine whether an easily administered self health perceived questionnaire could contribute to assess the cardiovascular risk of the population. Several studies have analyzed the impact of HRQL in patients with cardiovascular diseases [1] The questionnaire analyzed in our study to this purpose was the SF-12, which is a short form of the MOS SF-36 Health Survey designed to measure physical and mental health outcomes [2]. The present study is an analysis embedded in a community based cohort study, conducted in northeast Spain. Participants aged 35 to 74 years, free of cardiovascular disease, were randomly recruited from the census in 50 towns. The study protocol was approved by the local ethics committee and the results of the examination were sent to participants. More information about methods has been previously published [3]. Briefly, clinical examinations were performed by a team of trained investigators to determine anthropometric and clinical measurements, and laboratory tests. HRQL and lifestyles variables as smoking habit, alcohol consumption and physical activity were collected by interview. The outcomes of SF-12 were standardized according to the population-based values, considering 50 (Standard deviation: 10) as the mean of the population. In Spain, mean values of physical and mental health scores are 49.9 (SD 9.0) and 51.0 (SD 9.0), respectively [4]. The main end-points were the occurrence of cardiovascular events (acute myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, stroke, peripheral artery disease and cardiovascular death); and all deaths regardless of cause. Non-fatal events during follow-up were exhaustively ascertained by telephone questionnaire and completed by a review of medical records. Fatal events were checked and confirmed from regional and national mortality registers. Frequencies, mean and standard deviation or quartiles were reported. Chi-square test, ANOVA or t-test, or Kruskal–Wallis test were performed as appropriate to assess difference between groups. Log rank p-values were calculated to assess the significance of risk factor effect on time-to event. Adjusted Cox proportional hazard models were fitted to analyze independent effect of risk factors on time-to-event. The age range of the 3724 individuals included in the surveys was 35 to 74, mean age was 54.1 (SD=11.1). Women represented 51.9% of the sample. The median and 25th–75th percentiles of the physical and mental component summary of SF-12 at baseline were 51.9 (44.8– 55.3) and 52.3(43.7–56.6), respectively. Follow-up median was 6.3 years. Along this period, 249 individuals died (67 for cardiovascular disease), and 197 individuals suffered from a non-fatal cardiovascular event. Bivariate analysis showed that age, lower educational level, social isolation, bad cardiovascular risk factor profile, and lower scores in physical HRQL were associated with a higher risk of presenting a cardiovascular event and death (Table 1). ⁎ Corresponding author at: Unitat de Suport a la Recerca, C/Sant Elies 42, 08006, Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: +34 618653790. E-mail address: mamunoz.bcn.ics@gencat.cat (M.-A. Muñoz). 392 Letters to the Editor