Heart failure registries: how far can we go?

Heart failure (HF) registries have developed into powerful survey tools providing valuable epidemiological data and contributing crucially to our understanding of this syndrome.1 A recent study identified 23 registries (43% multinational and 57% national) reporting data for HF patients.2 Those registries concerned acute HF (31%), chronic HF (43%), and both acute and chronic HF (26%). The number of patients included varied from 1037 to 25 000 and the average follow-up ranged from 3 months to 53 months. The accumulated evidence concerned patient demographics (in 100% of registries), co-morbidities (87%), diagnosis and disease classification (78%), mortality (78%), hospitalization (96%), prescribed drugs (100%), and patient-reported outcomes (17%).