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J Am Coll Cardiol, 2001; 38:736-741 © 2001 by the American College of Cardiology Foundation |




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* Division of Cardiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Qualidigm, Middletown, Connecticut, USA
|| Section of Health Policy and Administration, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Manuscript received December 7, 2000; revised manuscript received May 3, 2001, accepted May 21, 2001.
Reprint requests and correspondence: Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, P.O. Box 208025, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8025
| Abstract |
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We evaluated the clinical characteristics and outcomes of elderly patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) to describe differences by age.
BACKGROUND
Elderly patients with AMI are perceived as a homogeneous population, though the extent by which clinical characteristics vary among elderly patients has not been well described.
METHODS
Data from 163,140 hospital admissions of Medicare beneficiaries age
65 years between 1994 and 1996 with AMI at U.S. hospitals were evaluated for differences in clinical characteristics and mortality across five age-based strata (in years): 65 to 69, 70 to 74, 75 to 79, 80 to 84 and
85.
RESULTS
Older age was associated with a greater proportion of patients with functional limitations, heart failure, prior coronary disease and renal insufficiency and a lower proportion of male and diabetic patients. Of note, the proportion of patients presenting with chest pain within 6 h of symptom onset, and with ST-segment elevation, was lower in each successive age group. Thirty-day mortality rates were higher in older age groups (65 to 69: 10.9%, 70 to 74: 14.1%, 75 to 79: 18.5%, 80 to 84: 23.2%,
85: 31.2%, p = 0.001 for trend). The effect of age persisted but was attenuated after adjustment for differences in patient characteristics; similar trends were observed for one-year mortality.
CONCLUSIONS
Our data indicate significant age-associated differences in clinical characteristics in elderly patients with AMI, which account for some of the age-associated differences in mortality. The practice of grouping older patients together as a single age group may obscure important age-associated differences.
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Accordingly, we sought to determine how clinical characteristics and outcomes of elderly patients hospitalized with AMI vary by age. Using data from the Cooperative Cardiovascular Project (CCP), a cohort of Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with AMI, we evaluated variations in clinical characteristics of elderly patients by age, the relationship of age, 30-day and one-year outcomes and the extent to which increased mortality was explained by age-associated variations in clinical characteristics. We anticipated that, rather than representing a homogeneous population, patients 65 years of age and older would exhibit significant differences in clinical characteristics by age and that higher mortality rates would be explained, in part, by differences in patients clinical characteristics and treatment.
| Methods |
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Age stratification and patient characteristics. We categorized patients into five groups based on their age (years): 65 to 69, 70 to 74, 75 to 79, 80 to 84 and 85 and older. Most demographic and clinical characteristics were abstracted as categorical variables in the CCP database. Missing categorical data elements were assumed to be negative for the variable. Missing values for continuous variables were imputed by the median value of the variable, and a separate indicator was used if the percentage of missing values (serum albumin, left ventricular ejection fraction) was more than 5%. Continuous variables were then dichotomized or categorized based on clinical significance. A history of AMI, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or congestive heart failure was considered to be evidence of prior coronary artery disease. Renal insufficiency was defined as blood urea nitrogen level >50 mg/dl, or creatinine >2.0 mg/dl on admission (for renal insufficiency as a comorbidity) or highest creatinine >2.0 mg/dl during the hospital stay (for renal insufficiency as a complication). Functional status was considered to be impaired if the patient was unable to ambulate without assistance, was incontinent, or if dementia was present. Heart failure was present on admission if documented by a physician or on the admission chest radiograph interpretation. Patients were also evaluated for use of AMI therapies.
Hospital characteristics, physician characteristics and outcomes. Hospitals were characterized by linking records with the 1994 American Hospital Association Survey (16). The specialty of the attending physician was determined by linking records to a database of physician-reported specialties obtained from the Health Care Financing Administration (17,18). Patient mortality was determined by linking records with the Medicare Enrollment Database (19).
Statistical methods. We first examined the association of patient characteristics and older age by chi-square tests and analyses of variance, testing for both global differences and trends by age. Crude patient outcomes were compared across age strata using bivariate analysis, and the independent association of age with 30-day and one-year mortality was evaluated sequentially by multivariable logistic regression analyses adjusted for patient and hospital characteristics, physician specialty, medical therapy use and clustering of patients by hospital. SAS 6.12 software (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina) and STATA 6.0 software (Stata Corporation, College Station, Texas) were used for analysis.
| Results |
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85 years. Older elderly patients presented less frequently with chest pain, ST-segment elevation, left bundle branch block, within 6 h of symptom onset, and had smaller enzymatic evidence of ischemia (lower creatine kinase) than younger elderly patients. In contrast, heart failure, tachycardia and anterior location of infarct were more common in older individuals (Table 1).
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Thirty-day and one-year mortality rates were markedly higher for older elderly patients compared with younger elderly patients, with a trend of successively higher mortality in intermediate age groups (Fig. 1). Age-associated mortality risks were attenuated but persisted after adjustment for patient, hospital and physician characteristics and AMI care. Most of the attenuation was accounted for by patient clinical characteristics and AMI care (Table 3).
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| Discussion |
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Previous research has found that older age is associated with a higher prevalence of comorbid conditions, atypical AMI presentation, nondiagnostic electrocardiograms, com-plications and mortality (27,1013,2022). However, these studies have typically enrolled small numbers of patients, often from clinical trials and, thus, reflect the experience of selected patient populations (2,6,12,13). The clinical detail contained in the CCP allowed us to evaluate characteristics of elderly AMI patients with an unprecedented level of detail in a cohort drawn from a nationally representative population. Though some of our findings are not surprising, CCP provides an opportunity to quantify the association of age and patients characteristics in an older group of patients.
Age-associated variation in AMI characteristics. Comorbidity varied by age, with some comorbid conditions less prevalent in older elderly patients and others more prevalent. A lower prevalence of certain comorbid conditions in older patients, such as diabetes or chronic lung disease, may reflect a survivor effect with earlier mortality among those with disease, leaving fewer patients with disease surviving to older age. The lower prevalence of prior CABG or PTCA in older subjects may indicate a survivor effect, but it may alternatively represent historical practice patterns of fewer coronary interventions when these patients were younger and the current practice of limited procedure use in older patients.
We observed significant variations in the clinical presentation of AMI in elderly patients. Older elderly AMI patients often presented without ST-segment elevation or with electrocardiographic presentations that were difficult to interpret, such as paced rhythms and left bundle branch block. The combination of atypical symptoms, delayed presentation and nondiagnostic electrocardiographic presentation indicates the difficulty in using traditional cues to facilitate early triage and diagnosis. This observation may account for the lower rates of therapy use in older elderly patients. Variations in therapy use are likely further exacerbated by older elderly patients treatment at smaller hospitals and management by nonspecialists (17,18,2325).
Age-associated variation in AMI mortality. A large portion of age-associated variation in mortality was attributable to age-related variation in patients clinical characteristics and AMI care, as adjustment for these factors resulted in the greatest reduction in the age-associated odds of 30-day and one-year mortality. Interestingly, adjustments for specialty of the attending physician and hospital characteristics had only a minor effect on age-associated variations in mortality, suggesting that, while these factors may influence process of care, they have a limited direct contribution to patient outcomes among elderly patients. Nevertheless, even after such adjustments, age remained an important predictor of 30-day and one-year mortality, with a relationship that appeared linear.
The independent association of age with mortality likely reflected the influence of many factors. Older age is associated with significant cardiovascular structural and physiologic changes that might predispose patients to adverse outcomes, including abnormalities of left ventricular diastolic function (26,27), decrease in systemic vascular compliance (28), increase in left ventricular mass index (29) and altered neurohormonal and autonomic influences (30,31). Similarly, coagulation factors (VII, VIII and IX) are increased compared with anticoagulation factors (antithrombin III, Protein C and Protein S) with advancing age, leading to a greater risk of thrombosis in older patients (32). Whether adjustment for these and other important factors (such as the severity of coronary artery disease) associated with age and outcomes not accounted for in this study would lead to further attenuation of the association between age and mortality is unknown.
Study limitations. The design of the CCP precludes comparisons with representative patients younger than 65 years of age. Our aim, however, was to illuminate differences in characteristics among patients 65 years of age and older since this group is commonly defined as a single group. Additionally, while CCP was a national cohort, it did not include patients enrolled in managed care. The exclusion of managed care patients may have resulted in a healthier cohort due to the increased enrollment of sicker patients in health maintenance organizations (for purposes of obtaining pharmaceutical benefits or other coverage) or a sicker cohort due to the enrollment of healthier patients by risk-averse health maintenance organizations. This issue is unlikely to have substantially affected our main findings.
Conclusions. Patients 65 years of age and older with AMI are a heterogeneous group by age. Studies that classify elderly patients as a single population may overlook important differences in elderly patients, particularly the oldest, who are often excluded from clinical research studies.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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| References |
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