Björck L, Basic C, Lundberg CE, et al. - Heart failure (HF) patients aged <65 years exhibited improvement in absolute survival, whereas only marginal improvement was observed in those aged ≥65 years. Relative to controls, an increase in both short-term and long-term relative risk of dying was evident, especially in younger patients with HF.

• Using data from the Swedish National Inpatient Registry, trends in short-term and long-term survival of patients (n=702,485) with HF vs controls (n=1,306,183) from the general population were analyzed.

• Decrease in short-term (29 days to 6 months) and long-term mortality (>11 years) was evident in HF patients aged 18–64 years; from 166 and 76.6 per 1000 person-years in 1987 to 2000 to 99.6 and 49.4 per 1,000 person-years, respectively, in 2001 to 2014.

• During the same span, a marginal improvement in mortality was evident in those aged ≥65 years.

• In 1987–2000, more than three times higher risk of dying at 29 days to 6 months was noted in those aged <65 years vs controls (hazard ratio HR 3.66) but it was substantially higher in 2001–2014 with an HR of 11.3.

• For long-term mortality (6–10 and >11 years), there was a moderate increase in the estimated HRs from 2.49 and 3.16 in 1987–2000 to 4.35 and 4.11 in 2001–2014, largely due to greater survival improvement in controls vs HF patients.