How common is diastolic heart failure?
The increasing size of the elderly population in North America is causing the number of people affected by the disease to increase dramatically. This increase has given rise to a perception that heart failure is a growing epidemic despite its stable incidence.13,14 Diastolic heart failure is common and is responsible for a large proportion of society’s health care costs.15 A recent review of primary epidemiologic studies of its prevalence across various communities suggests that diastolic heart failure accounts for 54% of all cases of heart failure on average, with a range of 40%–74%.13,16–20 This wide range likely reflects not only the unique characteristics of the communities investigated, but also the lack of a consistent definition of diastolic heart failure and the variability of the cutoff point for what is considered a normal or near normal ejection fraction.
