OBJECTIVES: To estimate the incidence and prevalence of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), a range of heart rhythm disorders that lead to episodic elevations in heart rates, in the United States (US) in contemporary practice.

METHODS: Observational retrospective longitudinal study using claims, enrollment, and demographic data from the IBM MarketScan® Commercial Research database (age < 65) and the Medicare Limited Dataset (age ≥ 65) from 2008-2016. Individuals with an SVT diagnosis code (ICD-9: 427.0; ICD-10: I47.1) on ≥2 outpatient, ≥1 emergency room, or ≥1 inpatient visit were considered as having SVT. Patients with atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF/AFL) were excluded from the initial analysis. Incidence was estimated by assessing diagnoses made during the fifth year of continuous enrollment. Nine-year prevalence and incidence were projected to the US population using 2018 census data. To account for comorbid AF/AFL, a sensitivity analysis was performed by including patients with both SVT and AF/AFL.

RESULTS: Among 18,057,297 study patients, 60,112 met SVT criteria when excluding AF/AFL. Period prevalence and incidence rate were estimated to be 332.9 (323.2-342.9) and 57.8 (52.8-63.3) per 100,000 individuals respectively. Projected to the 2018 US census, SVT prevalence and incidence are 1.26 million (1.21-1.30 million) and 188,981 (172,891-206,943) respectively. Including patients with AF/AFL, the prevalence and incidence of SVT increases to 479.7 (467.9-491.8) and 93.4 (86.9-100.5) per 100,000 individuals respectively or a nationwide prevalence of 2.06 million (2.01-2.12 million).

CONCLUSIONS: Approximately 1 in 300 people in the US had SVT. Older patients and female patients had the highest rates of SVT.