Heart failure in young adults: 20-year trends in hospitalization, aetiology, and case fatality in Sweden

Aims To describe trends in incidence and case fatality among younger (18-54 years) and older (55-84 years) Swedish patients with heart failure (HF). Methods and results Through linking the Swedish national hospital discharge and the cause-specific death registries, we identified patients aged 18-84 years that were discharged 1987-2006 with a diagnosis of HF. Age-specific mean incidence rates per 100 000 person-years were calculated in four 5-year periods. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were plotted up to 3 years. From 1987 to 2006, there were 443 995 HF hospitalizations among adults 18-84 years. Of these, 4660 (1.0%) and 13 507 (3.0%) occurred in people aged 18-44 and 45-54 years (31.6% women), respectively. From the first to the last 5-year period, HF incidence increased by 50 and 43%, among people aged 18-34 and 35-44 years, respectively. Among people >= 45 years, incidence peaked in the mid-1990s and then decreased. Heart failure in the presence of cardiomyopathy increased more than two-fold among all age groups. Case fatality decreased for all age groups until 2001, after which no further significant decrease,55 years was observed. Conclusion Increasing HF hospitalization in young adults in Sweden opposes the general trend seen in older patients, a finding which may reflect true epidemiological changes. Cardiomyopathy accounted for a substantial part of this increase. High case fatality and lack of further case fatality reduction after 2001 are causes for concern.