300,000 people suffering from potentially fatal heart disease ‘with third unaware of it’

Condition often remains silent and symptoms only emerge when disease is already advanced

An estimated 300,000 people in the UK have a potentially fatal heart disease, with a third of those likely unaware they have the “silent” condition, new research has found.

Aortic valve stenosis is a progressive and potentially fatal condition and over half of those with the advanced disease will likely die within five years without timely treatment.

The disease causes the main outflow valve of the heart to stiffen and narrow, reducing or blocking blood flow from the heart to the rest of the body.

In a significant proportion of patients, the condition remains silent and symptoms only emerge when the disease is already advanced.

According to new research, an estimated 300,000 people are living with the disease. Nearly a third of those cases - 92,389 people - have a “silent” version of the condition, which has limited symptoms.

Those people will only have the disease picked up if they are proactively screened for it or are undergoing tests for another heart problems, scientists have warned.

Some 35,000 people will die every year from aortic valve stenosis if they are not treated promptly enough, the research, published in the journal Open Heart, suggested.

Over the next five years, nearly 10,000 of these deaths are estimated to be among 55-64 year olds, around 30,000 among 65-74 year olds and 87,000 among 75-84 year olds. A further 48,000 over 85s will die from the condition, the study predicts.

The authors concluded that their study suggested that “severe aortic valve stenosis is a common condition affecting many individuals within the UK population aged 55 or over. Without appropriate detection and intervention, their survival prospects are likely to be poor.”

They also said that the predicted burden of the disease on the NHS is likely to be higher than the capacity the health service has to deal with it.