Objective: To assess the secular trends in the etiology and comorbidity of patients hospitalized with congestive heart failure (CHF).
Methods: Data of 7,319 patients (mean age 59.6 years, 62.1% male) with a primary discharge diagnosis of CHF, hospitalized from January 1, 1993 to December 31, 2007 at the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital were extracted and analyzed. These patients were divided into three groups according to hospitalization period: 1993-1997 (n = 1623), 1998-2002 (n = 2444), and 2003-2007 (n = 3252). The etiological characteristics and comorbidities were assessed.
Results: Over the study period, the proportion of patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) increased from 37.2% during the period 1993-1997 to 46.8% during the period 2003-2007, while that with valvular heart disease (VHD) decreased from 35.2% during the period 1993-1997 to 16.6% during the period 2003-2007 (both P < 0.05). Atrial fibrillation (AF) was the most common comorbidity of heart failure (23.2%, 23.0% and 20.6%, respectively, in the three periods). Compared to that of the period of 1993-1997 with that of, the proportion of patients with myocardial infarction, pneumonia, renal function impairment and hepatic cirrhosis of the period of 2003-2007 increased significantly (P < 0.05) and the proportion of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and atrial fibrillation decreased significantly (P < 0.05).
Conclusions: This study implies that IHD has became a more common etiology of CHF, while VHD has deceased as an etiology of CHF in Chinese patients during the last two decades.
Keywords: Atrial fibrillation; Comorbidity; Congestive heart failure; Etiology; Hospitalization.