(258) Prevalence of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) in the US

Publication Number: 589

Background: Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a condition characterized by symptoms (e.g., lightheadedness, weakness, palpitations) and an increase in heart rate (≥30bpm) when moving from a recumbent to a standing position. POTS is more common in women than men (estimates ranging from 3:1 to 5:1 women: men) but there are no population-based prevalence estimates of POTS in the US.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of POTS in the US in 2019.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using the IQVIA US Ambulatory electronic medical record database to identify patients with POTS in 2019. As there is no ICD-10 code for POTS, we utilized the SNOMED CT code (4159659) to identify patients. The denominator included any patient with ≥1 encounter/visit in 2019; the numerator included any patient with ≥1 SNOMED CT code (4159659) in 2019. Estimates were age- and sex- standardized to the 2019 US population using Census data.

Results: We identified 6,317 patients ≥1 SNOMED CT code for POTS. The mean age was 32.2 years (SD:15.5). The majority were women (n= 5,516; 87.4%) and Caucasian (n=4,983; 93.75%). After age and sex standardization, the estimated total number of patients with POTS in the US during 2019 was 123,985 (37.8 per 100,000 people in the US) of whom 102,794 were women (54.0 per 100,000 women in the US) and 21,191 were men (15.4 per 100,000 men in the US).

Conclusions: The estimated number of patients living with POTS suggests that it is a rare disease. Similar to what has been reported in the literature, we found that POTS generally impacted women between the ages of 15 to 50 years of age.