Prevalence of heart failure in the elderly and future projections: the AGES-Reykjavík study.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of heart failure (HF) in a randomly selected study population of elderly individuals representing the general population of Iceland. Furthermore, to project the number of individuals likely to have HF in the future.

DESIGN: Baseline characteristics and clinical data from 5706 individuals who participated in the population based AGES-Reykjavik Study and gave their informed consent were used. Their age range was 66-98 years (mean age 77.0 ± 5.9 years), 57.6% were females. HF-diagnoses were established by review of hospital records and adjudicated according to prespecified criteria. Data from the 'Statistics Iceland' institution on the current size, age and sex distribution of the population and its prediction into the sixth decade were also used.

RESULTS: The prevalence of HF was 3.6% in the sexes combined, but higher in men (5.1%) than women (2.7%) (p < .001). The prevalence of HF per age groups ≤69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84 and ≥85 years was 1.7%, 1.5%, 3.7%, 5.2% and 7.2%, respectively. The number of individuals ≥70 years with HF will increase considerably in the future. Thus, a calculation based on the projected age distribution and increase in the number of elderly ≥70 years in the coming decades, demonstrated that the number of patients with HF will have increased 2.3-fold by the year 2040 and tripled by the year 2060.

CONCLUSIONS: This study, in a cohort of elderly participants representative of the general population in a Nordic country, predicts that HF will be a major and increasing health problem in the coming decades.