Acute coronary syndrome in nonagenarians: gender gap?

Type of funding sources: None.

Ischemic heart disease in the elderly people has increased accordingly with rising hope of life. In patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) women have a higher mortality than men. However, it is unknown if these differences remain in nonagenarians.

Purpose

The aim of the study was to evaluate the therapeutic strategies and mortality at 1 year according to gender.

We retrospectively included in a multicenter study  all consecutive patients > 90 yo admitted with non-ST segment elevation (NSTEMI) or ST segment elevation MI (STEMI) between 2005 and 2018. Strategies treatment and mortality at 1 year by gender were evaluated.

680 patients were included (92.6 ± 2.4 years, 59% women) (Table 1). Women presented a greater prevalence of hypertension arterial. Conservative treatment was more frequent in women (73.5% vs 66.2%, p = 0.04) (Image 1), in particular in STEMI subgroup (p = 0.01). They had less capacity functional evaluated by Barthel index (p <0.01) and higher number of infections during admission than men (17.45% vs. 11.7%, p <0.01). The mortality evaluated at 12 months was similar in both groups (p = 0.38), with a trend of better prognosis in women who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) (p = 0.08).

Women had lower functional capacity than men, which could explain that they were more likely to be treated with conservative strategy. Mortality was similar in both genders, however, in the subgroup of patients undergoing PCI, was achieved a trend of lower mortality in women.