Clinical presentation and outcomes of acute myocardial infarction with vs. without ST elevation in octogenarians.

BACKGROUND

As a result of increased life expectancy, the number of octa- and nonagenarians presenting with myocardial infarction is on the rise. These patients are often underrepresented in clinical trials. The aim of this study was to compare the presentation and outcomes of ST-elevation (STEMI) and non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) in patients older than 80 years.

METHODS

This retrospective study included 14758 patients above 80 years of age hospitalized with STEMI or NSTEMI who were selected from the Polish Registry of Acute Coronary Syndromes using propensity score matching (two equal size groups).

RESULTS

Patients with STEMI were more likely to undergo coronary angiography (87.80% vs. 77,03%) and revascularization (80.50% vs. 54.26%); in STEMI the culprit lesion was more likely to be located in left anterior descending artery (LAD) (31.76% vs. 44.43%) or right coronary artery (RCA) (18.41% vs. 35.29%), and NSTEMI more likely to be located in left main (4.59% vs. 1.76%) or other native artery (23.3% vs. 6.02%). Elderly patients with STEMI had higher all-cause mortality at 30-days (19.62% vs. 14.51%) and 1-year (32.00% vs. 29.54%). The difference was highly influenced by initial in-hospital mortality (17.96% vs. 12.48%). Among hospital survivors there was no difference in 30-days mortality and 1-year mortality was higher for NSTEMI hospital survivors (17.06% vs. 14.04%).

CONCLUSIONS

In patients older than 80 years of age with similar baseline characteristics, STEMI and NSTEMI had different presentation, outcomes and required different treatment strategy. ST-elevation patients had higher in-hospital mortality and NSTEMI patients had higher post-hospital mortality after 1 year.