Temporal Trends and Regional Variations in Cardiovascular Care in Japan, 2010-2019

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are a major cause of mortality worldwide. Nonetheless, the current trend in cardiology hospitals in Japan has not been comprehensively explored. This descriptive study used the Japanese Registry of All Cardiac and Vascular Diseases database during 2010-2019. The nationwide 10-year trend in cardiovascular medical care systems was described in detail corre-sponding to the regions in Japan. Cardiovascular facilities and the number of cardiology beds, hospitalized patients, and cardiologists in-creased during 2010-2019. There were regional differences in the number of patients and cardiologists per bed, but the differences in the number of hospitalized patients per cardiologist decreased among the regions. Of the three major acute cardiovascular diseases, patients hospitalized with heart failure per cardiologist have been in-creasing. However, the in-hospital mortality rates have not changed over the last decade (8.6% for acute myo-cardial infarction, 7.7% for heart failure, and 12.7% for acute aortic dissection in 2019). There was an increasing trend in the availability of cardiovascular care resources in Japan during 2010-2019. This study provides a comprehensive summary of the current cardiovascular care and the follow-up re-quired in the future.