Background. Older patients, generally defined as individuals age >75 years, are less likely to receive percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) compared to younger patients. This is due to the paucity of evidence derived from randomized trials, concerns about possible PCI-related side effects, and multimorbidity. We investigated the prognostic impact of PCI in a large population of patients hospitalized with AMI in the period 2003-2018, by using the administrative Lombardy Health Database.
Methods. We analyzed data of all patients >75 years hospitalized with AMI (both STEMI and NSTEMI) from 2003 to 2018 in Lombardy. Patients were grouped according to whether they were treated or not with PCI during index hospitalization. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. One-year mortality and 1-year re-hospitalization for acute heart failure (AHF) or AMI were considered as secondary endpoints.
Results. During the study period, 116,063 patients (mean age 83±6; 48% males; 46% STEMI) were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of AMI. Thirty-seven percent of them (n=42,912) were treated with PCI. The in-hospital mortality rate in the entire cohort was 12%. It was significantly lower in patients treated with PCI than in those not treated with PCI (6% vs. 15%; P<0.0001). In the overall population, 1-year mortality was 32% and 1-year re-hospitalization for AHF/AMI was 19%. Both these endpoints were less frequent in PCI-treated patients (16% vs. 41% and 15% vs. 21%, respectively; P<0.0001). The adjusted risk of the study endpoints was significantly lower in patients treated with PCI: OR 0.37 (95% CI 0.36-0.39) for in-hospital mortality; HR 0.37 (95% CI 0.36-0.38) for 1-year mortality; HR 0.74 (95% CI 0.71-0.77) for 1-year re-hospitalization for AHF/AMI. Similar results were found in STEMI and NSTEMI patients considered separately.
Conclusions. Our real-world data showed that in patients with AMI >75 years of age, PCI use is associated with a significantly lower in-hospital mortality and up to 1 year.
This work was partly financed by the Italian Ministry of Health and the Lombardia Region (Grant NET-2016-02364191; EASY-NET)