[The author reviews significant results related to hypertension with special emphasis on papers published in the LAM during the past twenty years. The history of hypertensiology, important aspects of hypertension research, therapeutic guidelines, antihypertensive agents and their combinations are also discussed. A brief section is dedicated to the expected future development of hypertension research and new directions of antihypertensive therapy.]

[The last few years have seen an increasingly widespread use of anticoagulant treatment. Not only is it applied in a wider range of diseases, but the duration of the treatment has also become longer on the basis of recent recommendations. Beside the traditional anticoagulant agents, coumarin and heparin, a new generation of anticoagulants has emerged in the past few years. These can be administered orally in a fixed dose, which will make anticoagulant treatment available for an even wider patient population. However, the more widespread use of anticoagulants will result in the growing occurrence of their most threatening adverse effect, bleeding. We summarize the treatment options for the bleeding complications in connection with the administration of the currently used anticoagulants and the available methods of their reversal.]

[Neonatal intensive care and therapeutic process is accompanied with a range of painful interventions. Research data from the past decades revealed that repeated and/or prolonged pain has long-term consequences on the neurobiological development of the premature infant, which has led to an increased attention to the measurement and alleviation of pain. In addition to pharmacological pain relief, more and more alternative pain management methods of varying efficacy are appearing in the provision of care for premature infants. In this study, we introduce non-pharmacological pain treatment methods with proven efficiency that can be applied to complement the pharmacological pain management or as a therapy before any painful interventions in intensive neonatological care. These methods include heart sound and music therapy, nutritive and non-nutritive sucking, swaddling, touching and kangaroo care.]