[Registry of heart failure patients hospitalized in 2000. Data from the National College of Cardiology and General Hospital].

The French epidemiological data on cardiac insufficiency in the hospital environment are scarce. A register collecting 1772 patients was produced by the services of the National College of General Hospital Cardiologists (C.N.C.H.G.) during two periods: autumn 1999 (November) and spring 2000 (June). It involved completing a form for each of the first 20 patients with cardiac failure hospitalized over a month. 1011 and 761 observations from 59 and 47 centres (that is 17 and 16 observations per centre) were collected during the autumn and spring periods respectively. In France, in the general hospital centres (CHG) cardiology services during the year 2000, the characteristics and the medical treatment of hospitalized patients with cardiac failure are very similar to those presented in 1998 by A. Cohen-Solal in the name of the working group "Cardiomyopathy and Cardiac Insuficiency of the French Society of Cardiology". The hospitalized patient with cardiac failure is very old, usually male, has an ischaemic cardiopathy in one in two cases, and is at stage II and III on the New York Heart Association (NYHA) scale in 83% of cases. There is practically always an electrocardiographic anomaly. Loop diuretics are prescribed nine times out of ten, digitalis one in three, anagiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors are underused being prescribed two out of three times, but an increase in the prescription of anti-aldosterone and betablockers is found. The majority of patients improve during their stay, 7.8% dying and this mortality is influenced by age, ejection fraction (FE), functional NYHA class, causal cardiopathy, and the existence of severe renal failure. The data collected by the cardiology services of the C.N.C.H.G. are representative of the profile of the population affected and are important to know in order to improve the management of these patients.