Sisyphus, so goes the story of the Greek myth, the devious founder and King of Corinth, was condemned by Zeus to eternally roll a massive stone up a hill in the Tartarus, the deepest and darkest abyss of the underworld, only for it to roll back down once he got close to the top with it (Figure 1). This punishment was a consequence of him cheating Thanatos, the Greek personification of death, on two occasions.
Cheating death, is this not the mission of medicine, of physicians at large? Indeed, over the last 200 years we have reduced child and mother mortality massively, vaccinations have prevented fatal pandemics that had killed millions in the past such as polio and small pox and other viral diseases. 

Read the full article (European Heart Journal (2026) 00, 1–6) here!