Authors: Bhavsar R, Jakobsen CJ.
Objective: The number of cardiac interventions has increased massively and improved the outcome after cardiac events. The efforts during the last decades have proven effective with a falling incidence of new cardiovascular diseases. In a relatively uniform country with free tax supported medical treatment and a fully developed ambulance and helicopter service, percutaneous cardiac intervention (PCI) after acute coronary syndrome (ACS) or overall revascularization must be a good indicator of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and geographical differences must reflect the area frequency of IHD. Thus, so far there has not been much focus on local in country differences, which could reveal new focus for treatments.
Material and Methods: The mandatory Western Denmark Heart Registry (WDHR) was used to identify all adult cardiac procedure performed in 3 Danish regions from 2000-2020. The registry included 282,883 new patients entries of which 232,592 was grouped as IHD.
Results: Steady increase in number of investigations was observed over 15 years with stabilization of the absolute number of interventions after 2005 with subsequent decrease in treatment fraction. Data demonstrated a comparable regional activity, but significant differences in the incidence of IHD between individual municipalities.
Conclusion: The screening, investigation and intervention initiative during the last two decades has proven effective which is demonstrated by the falling incidence of new cardiovascular diseases. However, for further and faster achievements, rapidly growing use of prevention and treatment resources should be allocated to focussed areas by taking in-country differences in consideration.
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