Lack of progress in valvular heart disease in the pre-transcatheter aortic valve replacement era: Increasing deaths and minimal change in mortality rate over the past three decades

Abstract

Background Valvular heart disease (VHD) is an increasingly common problem in clinical practice. With the development of new but expensive therapeutic options, health care systems require timely epidemiological information on VHD. We sought to determine the mortality burden of VHD and how it has changed over time. Methods Population level data from the United States (US) from 1979 to 2009 were used to examine trends in VHD mortality rates over time. Our outcome measure was death, where the primary cause of death was valvular heart disease. Results The annual number of VHD deaths increased from 15,054 in 1979 to 26,663 in 2009, an increase of on average 2.8% in the US each year (R2 = 0.97, P