The future of cardiology – heart disease in older patients

Cardiovascular death is steadily decreasing but still accounts for 40% of deaths (235,000) in this country per year. More than 85% occur in older patients over the age of 65 years. The future of cardiology lies in the delivery of care to this rapidly expanding population of older people, whose growing numbers will account for an increasing trend upwards in the prevalence of cardiovascular morbidity in the UK. There will be increasing numbers of heart failure, hypertension, myocardial infarction, angina, atrial fibrillation, pacemaker implants and heart valve implantation in older patients. Randomised clinical trials often exclude the treatment of these conditions in patients over 75 years and results cannot always be easily extrapolated. Older patients often seem to be disadvantaged when compared with younger patients with cardiovascular disease. This article is the first in a series examining the treatment of older patients with cardiovascular disease.