After nearly two decades of declining valvular heart disease deaths, mortality rates have increased and are predicted to remain elevated through 2040, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Session 2026.
An AHA report found more than 80 million people worldwide live with heart valve disease, with more than 57,000 dying from it each year in the U.S., according to a Nov. 2 association news release.
Researchers analyzed CDC WONDER Multiple Cause of Death data covering more than 1.2 million heart valve disease-related deaths among adults 65 and older from 1999 to 2023. The findings have not been peer-reviewed.
“Our study found that the decades-long decline in deaths from heart valve disease has stopped,” Hritvik Jain, MD, a resident physician in internal medicine at Pittsburgh-based Allegheny General Hospital, said in the release. “We also found that while death rates improved for newer generations in their late 60s, those gains did not continue into very old age. At age 85 and older, newer generations had higher death rates than earlier generations at the same age.”
Here is what to know.
1. Heart valve disease death rates among older adults increased by nearly 5% between 2018 and 2023, rising from 104 to 109.2 deaths per 100,000 people. The death rate had declined from a high of 123.2 deaths per 100,000 in 1999 and reached its lowest levels immediately before the pandemic before climbing.
2. Men had higher rates of valvular heart disease deaths than women, at 124.7 vs. 103.1 per 100,000, and white adults had the highest death rates among all racial and ethnic groups.
3. Death rates were higher in nonmetropolitan areas than metropolitan areas, at 120.5 vs. 110.1 per 100,000.
4. By 2040, heart valve disease death rates are projected to remain around 109.2 per 100,000, rather than continuing the previous decline.
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