Nationwide incidence of first stroke and TIA in the Netherlands

Information on incidence of stroke is important for developing and maintaining public health strategies in primary and secondary prevention. Nationwide data on the incidence of stroke are scarce and absent for the Netherlands. New cases of first stroke and stroke subtypes in the Dutch population in 2000 were identified through linkage of national registers and included hospitalized patients for first stroke and out-of-hospital deaths from first stroke. The number of non-fatal, non-hospitalized stroke patients was estimated based on data from the Rotterdam study, a population based cohort. We identified 26 556 patients with a first stroke (20 798 hospitalized patients, 5758 out-of-hospital deaths). The number of non-fatal, non-hospitalized first stroke patients was estimated to be 12 255. Extrapolation of the data to the total Dutch population led to an overall estimate of approximately 41 000 patients with a first stroke. Stroke incidence increased with age and was higher in men than in women, except in the lowest (< 45 years) and highest age group (> 85 years). The present study provides for the first time incidence estimates of first stroke (hospitalized patients, out-of hospital deaths and non-fatal, non-hospitalized patients) based upon virtually the entire Dutch population.