Hot summers and heart failure: seasonal variations in morbidity and mortality in Australian heart failure patients (1994-2005).

Background: There are minimal reports of seasonal variations in chronic heart failure (CHF)-related morbidity and mortality beyond the northern hemisphere.

Aims And Methods: We examined potential seasonal variations with respect to morbidity and all-cause mortality over more than a decade in a cohort of 2961 patients with CHF from a tertiary referral hospital in South Australia subject to mild winters and hot summers.

Results: Seasonal variation across all event-types was observed.