European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Heart diseases comprise the most prevalent serious disorders in industrialized nations and are a rapidly growing problem in developing nations1 Heart disease is now the most common cause of death worldwide. Before 1900, infectious diseases and malnutrition were the most common causes, and heart disease was responsible for <10% of all deaths.  In 2017, heart disease accounted for 17.8 million deaths worldwide (32%), with the same rate now occurring in high, low and middle-income countries1. India has one of the highest burdens of heart disease worldwide. The annual number of deaths from heart disease in India is projected to rise from 2.26 million (1990) to 4.77 million (2020)(2) Coronary artery disease(CAD) prevalence rates in India have been estimated over the past several decades and have ranged from 1.6% to 7.4% in rural populations and from 1% to 13.2% in urban populations3

Atherosclerosis is primarily a disease of aorta, carotid , iliac and coronary arteries.

Recent advances in the field of modern medicine with the effective treatment life expectancy has been increased and an improvement in the quality of life but despite these achievements, the prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD) still remains high4.

Aim and Objectives

Aim 

• To retrospectively find the different pathologies of heart disease in the cases examined at Mortuary of Bundelkhand Medical College, Sagar, M.P and district hospital Sagar, M.P

Objectives

To find the incidence of heart disease in different age groups and different sex

To find the incidence of different pathologies of heart

2250 autopsies were performed during the time period of July 2023 to December 2024 out of that 83 cases of cardiac deaths were found. Deaths due to non-cardiac causes, such as trauma were excluded

• Sex
• Age
• Heart weight
• Cardiomegaly
• Types of pathology
• 2250 autopsies were performed during the time period of July 2023 to December 2024 out of that 83 cases of cardiac deaths were found.
• The cases in study were divided into different age groups according to the age and sex.
• 76 (92%) victims were males and 07 (8% )were females
• Most of the deceased from both sexes belonged to 40-49 yrs (27.71%) followed by 50-59 yrs (26.51%). Least incidence were found in the age group below 19 years and >80 years.

Among 83 cases of cardiac deaths (92%) victims were males and (8%) were females

Age

Below 20 years and above 80 years 2 cases were found, who died from heart disease

Heart weight

Any person with a heart in excess of 420gm is at risk of sudden death⁵ . Maximum heart weight recorded in 1 case was 900gms

There is considerable increase in the number of deaths due to coronary atherosclerosis in India and this number is probably expected to increase in the coming decades if not controlled6. The most concern is the early age of CHD deaths in the developing countries as compared to the developed countries, which will definitely lame the major work force of our nation7

Comparison with previous studies Males are more affected than females

In the studies of Sudha et al8. Virmani et al9. and Stary. et al10. CAD develop quite early in life starting from age 20 years onwards. In our study incidence of CAD was found to be 81.93 % which was comparable with the frequency given by Dr. Sunil et al. (49.02%)11,Yazdi et al. (40%)12 and Golshahi et al. (28.9%)13. Likely the acquisition of several risk factors such as tobacco consumption, lack of physical activity, stress, unhealthy diet, and obesity.

Coronary artery disease was the major contributory cause of heart disease deaths and most numbers of deaths were reported in the age group 40-49 followed by 50-59 years with male to female ratio 10:1 .

Hence this data shows us the quintessential requirement of intervention in the prevention of heart diseases

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