Guidelines and Focused Updates written under the auspices of the European Society of Cardiology’s (ESC) Committee for Practice Guidelines (CPG) summarize and evaluate available evidence with the aim of assisting health professionals in selecting the best manage- ment strategies for an individual patient with a given condition. The CPG Guidelines’ and Focused Updates’ recommendations should facilitate decision making of health professionals in their daily practice. However, the final decisions concerning an individual patient must be made by the responsible health professional(s) in consultation with the patient and caregiver as appropriate. A great number of guidelines and focused updates have been issued in recent years by the ESC and by the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) as well as by other societies and organizations. Because of the impact on clinical practice, quality criteria for the development of guidelines have been established in order to make all ...