Mortality from Cardiomyopathies in Brazil

Cardiomyopathies represent a heterogeneous group of heart muscle diseases that, although individually less prevalent than coronary artery disease, impose a substantial burden of morbidity and mortality on a global scale. Data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 estimate that cardiomyopathies were responsible for approximately 1.2 million deaths worldwide, with an age-standardized mortality rate of 14.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, and more than 28 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost annually.^, Despite therapeutic advances in recent decades, the epidemiological trajectory of these conditions remains marked by profound regional inequalities, both between countries on different continents and within the same national territory. It is in this context that the study by Silva et al. offers a timely and necessary contribution by analyzing the epidemiological profile, as well as the spatiotemporal evolution of mortality from cardiomyopathies in Brazil between 2001 and 2021.

This is an important ecological epidemiological study that used data from the Mortality Information System (SIM) to examine more than 200,000 deaths from cardiomyopathies over a two-decade period. The average mortality rate was observed to be 6.66 per 100,000 inhabitants, reaching 7.64 per 100,000 in 2004 and falling to 4.15 per 100,000 in 2020. A significant annual reduction of 1.86% (p<0.05) was observed, and spatial analysis revealed clusters of high mortality, mainly in the Central-West, South, and Southeast regions.

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