Coronary heart disease and stroke

Abstract

Although at declining incidence, cardiovascular diseases still represent the leading causes of death in the Western world, and myocardial infarction occupies the largest share within these deaths. In 2006, 26% of all 2,426,264 deaths in the United States resulted from cardiac diseases, 23% from malignant diseases; 6% were caused by cerebrovascular diseases. Cardiac deaths had a male/female ratio of 1.5. From 1999 to 2006, there was a decline of the total annual death rate from cardiac disease from 260 to 211 per 100,000 inhabitants. This rate is 207 at age 55-64 years and rises to 1,383 at age 75-84 years and even to 4,480 at age 85+ years (Heron et al. 2009). This indicates that although cardiac diseases as a major cause of death are on the decline, the immense increase at higher age is an important feature of aging societies. The life expectancy at birth in 2006 was 75 years for males, 80 years for females, with the difference mainly reflecting the underrepresentation of women in the incidence of cardiac disease.