Alcoholic cardiomyopathy-attributed mortality in Europe, 2012-20

Alcoholic cardiomyopathy (AC) is an important cause of cardiovascular disease worldwide. However, assessments of recent trends in the contribution of AC to European mortality are limited. To assess the trends in AC-attributable mortality in Europe from 2012 to 2020 across age, sex and European subregions.

Alcoholic cardiomyopathy-attributed mortality data from 2012 to 2020 were obtained from the World Health Organization (WHO) mortality database, while alcohol consumption trends were sourced from the WHO NCD dataset. Age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMRs) were analysed using joinpoint regression to calculate average annual percentage change (AAPC) with 95% confidence intervals. A parallelism test was used to compare trends via pairwise joinpoint regression analysis. From 2012 to 2020, 504 096 subjects (387 387 men and 116 709 women) died from AC, equating to 634.5 deaths per 100 000 population. The relative AAMR decreased over the study period [AAPC: -4.7% (95% CI: -5.4 to -3.9), P < 0.001], especially in women compared with men (p for parallelism = 0.006). The decrease in AC-attributable mortality was greater among subjects aged 70 years and older compared with those younger than 70 (p for parallelism 0.001). The AAMRs for the AC-attributable mortality decreased in all European subregions except in the South. Analysis of the WHO NCD dataset revealed an average annual alcohol consumption of 10.8L in 2012 and 9.9L in 2020 in Europe, reflecting an approximately 8.3% decrease.

Alcoholic cardiomyopathy-attributable mortality in Europe has declined over the past decade, paralleling a reduction in alcohol consumption.