The rate of heart failure in the US among older adults increased from the 1970s to the 1990s, but survival rates have improved, new research shows. Both of these trends were more apparent in men than in women.

“Hospitalizations for heart failure have more than doubled between the two periods,” Dr. William H. Baker, from the University of Rochester in New York, said in a statement. “Heart failure is the most common discharge diagnosis for men and women over age 65.”

The findings, which appear in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, are based on study of new cases of heart failure in the early 1970s and 1990s using data for more than 300,000 older adults enrolled in an HMO in Oregon or Washington.

From 1970 to 1974, a total of 387 patients were diagnosed with heart failure. The number of new cases from 1990 to 1994 was 1555. After accounting for age, a 14 percent increase in the rate of heart failure was observed between the two periods. As noted, this rise was greater in men than in women.

Deaths due to heart failure fell during the 20-year period by 33 percent for men and by 24 percent for women, the report indicates.

As to why survival did not improve as much in women, the researchers believe that it may be because older women have more additional diseases than men or because they are more physically frail.

“The increase in incidence and survival for heart failure suggests an accelerating rise in this disabling and costly disease that is of public health and clinical importance,” Baker emphasized. “In the future, heart failure deserves the highest research priority into its precipitating factors and its management.”

SOURCE: Circulation, online February 6, 2006.