Abstract
BACKGROUND: Comprehensive monitoring of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is essential in rapidly aging societies such as Japan. The Japanese Circulation Society (JCS) launched the Japanese Registry Of All cardiac and vascular Diseases-Diagnosis Procedure Combination (JROAD-DPC) registry, linking annual JROAD questionnaires with nationwide DPC administrative claims to enable patient-level analyses of hospitalized CVD care. This Protocol Paper presents a comprehensive overview of the registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using anonymized data (April 2012-March 2023), we described temporal trends in patient demographics, principal CVD diagnoses, major interventions, disease-specific severity, and hospital characteristics. From FY2012-FY2022, participating facilities increased from 610 to 860, with registered patients more than doubling. Median age rose from 73.0 to 75.0 years; patients aged ≥90 years nearly quadrupled. The proportion of angina pectoris admissions declined (26.8% to 11.7%), while absolute numbers remained stable. Atrial fibrillation/flutter admissions rose in both proportion (4.1% to 5.9%) and absolute number. Heart failure admissions increased steadily, with its proportion showing a U-shaped trend. Catheter ablations for atrial fibrillation/flutter increased over fivefold, exceeding 64,000, while percutaneous coronary interventions for acute myocardial infarction surpassed 46,000. CONCLUSIONS: JROAD-DPC now captures over 1.5 million annual CVD hospitalizations, providing a nationwide, large-scale longitudinal view of cardiovascular care in Japan. Its scale and validated coding enable robust analyses of trends and outcomes, supporting national CVD policy evaluation and improvement.