The use of revascularization procedures is increasing rapidly among patients 80 and older admitted for an acute myocardial infarction, a retrospective Canadian study found.
For such patients living in Quebec, rates increased for both percutaneous coronary intervention (from 2.2% to 24.9%) and coronary artery bypass grafting (from 0.8% to 3.1%) from the mid-1990s through 2006, Louise Pilote, MD, PhD, of McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues reported online in CMAJ.
And despite a similar rise in the prevalence of comorbidities in this population, one-year mortality declined from 46.5% to 40.9% (P<0.001), possibly related to the greater use of revascularization procedures and recommended medications.
"Substantial numbers of revascularization procedures are now being performed in very old patients for whom such procedures were not even considered a decade ago," they wrote. "In the context of an aging population and limited healthcare resources, it is imperative to determine whether such drastic changes in practice are cost-effective."
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