Guidelines for Acute Coronary Syndromes Benefit the Old Old

BOSTON, April 26 -- Patients 90 or older with acute coronary syndromes have decreased hospital mortality when recommended therapy guidelines are followed, according to researchers here.
So-called old-old patients who arrived at an emergency room with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes were less likely than younger elderly patients, ages 75 to 89, to receive recommended treatments, but for those who did, survival was better, reported the CRUSADE team in the May 1 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The CRUSADE registry, used in this study, is an ongoing voluntary, observational quality-improvement initiative for patients with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome, said David J. Cohen, M.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and colleagues.
The researchers used the CRUSADE registry data to study 5,557 patients, age 90 and older, with acute coronary syndromes, seen in emergency rooms at 525 hospitals. Of these, 112 patients were 100 years or older. Patients were enrolled from January 2001 through June 2005.