An observational study of PE-related mortality trends in EU15+ countries across a 20-year period

<bold>Background:</bold> Pulmonary embolism (PE) remains a major cause of preventable death. There has been no recent update on PE-related mortality trends in Europe and North America. <bold>Aims:</bold> We aimed to describe PE-related mortality trends in EU15+ countries from 2000 to 2020. <bold>Methods:</bold> We extracted data from the WHO Mortality Database for EU15+ countries, excluding those with >3 consecutive years of missing data and populations of <1 million. Deaths were considered PE-related if PE or DVT were listed as cause of death per ICD-10. Mortality rates were reported as age-standardised death rates (ASDR) per 100,000 population. ASDR trends and estimated annual percentage change (EAPC) were calculated using Joinpoint regression analysis. <bold>Results:</bold> 16 countries were included. Trends from 2000 to 2020 showed a median decline in PE-related mortality for men (−41.6%) and women (−42.2%). Median ASDR was 2.96 at the start and 1.65 at the end. The decline rate was initially linear but not sustained from 2010 to 2020 in Austria, France, Italy, Sweden and the UK which saw a rate plateau. Two countries saw rising trends in the last decade: Spain by EAPC of 1.5% in men, and USA by 1.5% and 0.3% in men and women (Figure 1). <bold>Conclusions:</bold> PE-related mortality rates are reducing across the EU15+ countries but this is not sustained after 2010 with a stalling or reversal of declining trends. Further work is needed to investigate these recent unfavourable trends. <fig><object-id>erj;64/suppl_68/PA753/F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><graphic></graphic></fig>