Cardiovascular mortality: quality diagnostics analysis and causal statistics of lethal outcomes

The high cardiovascular mortality (CVM) proves the necessity of verification analysis of cardiovascular death causes. The research goal is to determine the quality, facilities and peculiarities of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) of postmortem diagnostics and statistical recording as a cause of death. 1972 successive cases of CVM in Voronezh, Ryazan and Khanty-Mansiysk have been analyzed. The majority of deaths caused by CVD were classified as fatalities occurring outside hospital and in the absence of medical care (88.0%). Incidence of cardiovascular deaths was confirmed by autopsy in 28.3% cases. With increasing age, the incidence of detecting CVD as a cause of death increased, while the frequency of referral to autopsy consistently decreased. Chronic Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) forms comprising 48.3% of all CVM were confirmed by autopsy results only in 29.5% of cases. Acute IHD forms (including myocardial infarction) accounted for only 11.6% of CVM; however this diagnosis was based on autopsy results in 72.4% of cases. The high death rate outside hospital and in the absence of medical care with the rare referral to autopsy, especially for elderly having chronic CVD, does not provide reliable statistical information on CVM