Coronary artery disease in the geriatric population

Perioperative care of geriatric patients

The older population is expected to nearly double across the globe by 2050, and the baby boom cohort is expected to represent at least 20% of the US population by 2030. Geriatric patients will increasingly utilize the health-care system, and therefore surgical and perioperative care must be tailored to this sensitive group given the increased risk for perioperative complications. The literature was reviewed to highlight fundamental components of the preoperative evaluation as well as cardiac, pulmonary, and renal complications. Frailty is a multidimensional process that can lead to the physiologic effects of aging and estimates the risk of perioperative morbidity and mortality better than chronologic age alone. Health-care providers should assess a geriatric patient's cognitive status, decision-making capacity, frailty, advance care planning, medications, and anesthetic approach in a multidisciplinary fashion to ensure optimal care. The risks of postoperative cardiac, pulmonary, and renal complications should be evaluated and optimized preoperatively to reduce the potential for adverse outcomes.

Correlation Between Ankle Brachial Index and Coronary Artery Disease Severity in Elderly Egyptians

We investigated the association between ankle brachial index (ABI) and coronary heart disease (CHD) severity in elderly Egyptians using different measures. We conducted a case–control study from November 2010 to June 2012 including 200 male and female patients with ischemia ≥60 years who were divided into 100 cases and 100 controls according to ABI and redivided according to age. They underwent coronary angiography followed by ABI measurement using a hand-held Doppler. The CHD severity was estimated using the SYNTAX and Jeopardy scores and number of diseased vessels, which increased significantly in patients with peripheral artery disease ( P < .001) for all. All 3 measures had strong negative correlation with ABI ( P ≤ .001 for Jeopardy, <.001 for SYNTAX scores, and .004 for number of diseased vessels) and were correlated with each other. We concluded that ABI can reflect CHD severity in elderly Egyptians.

Effect of age and plaque morphology on diagnostic accuracy of dual source multidetector computed tomography coronary angiography

Background

Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) coronary angiography represents one of the most exciting technological revolutions in cardiac imaging and it has been increasingly used in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of age and coronary plaque calcification on diagnostic accuracy of MDCT.

Methods

The patients were examined by using dual-source MDCT and conventional coronary angiography. MDCT results were analyzed with regard to the severity (> 50% stenosis) and morphology (non-calcified, mixed, or calcified) of coronary atherosclerotic plaques evaluated in a 16-segment model.

Results

In total, 181 patients (94 men and 87 women) with 2,687 coronary artery segments were examined with MDCT. Ninety three patients were older than 65 years of age (group A, 42 men) and 88 were younger (group B, 52 men). Two-hundred nine coronary artery segments (7.2%) were excluded because of small distal coronary vessel segments and/or motion artifacts. The overall number of segments with non-diagnostic image quality was similar in both groups of patients. Of the 2,687 evaluated segments, 157 (5.8%) were significantly diseased, and 144 of them were correctly detected by MDCT. Diagnostic evaluation showed that the sensitivity, positive predictive value, specificity, and negative predictive value were 89.5%, 62.5%, 96.0%, and 99.2%, respectively in group A, and 95.2%, 64.8%, 97.5%, and 99.8% in group B, respectively. In addition, detailed segment-based analyses in coronary segments with non-calcified, mixed and calcified plaques in both groups were similar diagnostic accuracy.

Conclusions

Very high diagnostic accuracy observed in this study suggests that MDCT coronary angiography could be a suitable diagnostic tool for not only younger patients but also for older patients.

Clinical utility of rosuvastatin and other statins for cardiovascular risk reduction among the elderly

Age is one of the strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Treatment with statins can significantly reduce CVD events and mortality in both primary and secondary prevention. Yet despite the high CVD risk among the elderly, there is underutilization of statins in this population (ie, the treatment-risk paradox). Few studies have investigated the use of statins in the elderly, particularly for primary prevention and, as a result, guidelines for treating the elderly are limited. This is likely due to: uncertainties of risk assessment in older individuals where the predictive value of individual risk factors is decreased; the need to balance the benefits of primary prevention with the risks of polypharmacy, health care costs, and adverse medication effects in a population with decreased life expectancy; the complexity of treating patients with many other comorbidities; and increasingly difficult social and economic concerns. As life expectancy increases and the total elderly population grows, these issues become increasingly important. JUPITER (Justification for the Use of statins in Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin) is the largest primary prevention statin trial to date and enrolled a substantial number of elderly adults. Among the 5695 JUPITER participants ≥ 70 years of age, the absolute CVD risk reduction associated with rosuvastatin was actually greater than for younger participants. The implications of this JUPITER subanalysis and the broader role of statins among older adults is the subject of this review.

Coronary calcium scanning in geriatric cardiology

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is prevalent in the elderly, often leads to disability, and is the number one cause of death in this population. Older adults represent an increasingly important and challenging subset of the population with CAD. They are more likely to have comorbid conditions, atypical presentations, and unfavorable outcomes than their younger counterparts. The available data suggest that standard pharmacologic, thrombolytic, and definitive revascularization techniques have important roles in the treatment of geriatric patients but have been underutilized. Consequently, strategies for optimizing the prevention and treatment of CAD in the elderly are important from both the individual and societal perspectives. Coronary artery calcium has been shown to be highly specific for atherosclerosis, occurring only in the intima of the coronary arteries. There is evidence to show that elevated coronary calcium scores are predictive of future cardiovascular events, both independently of and incrementally to conventional cardiovascular risk factors. This article will review such a screening method, namely coronary calcium scanning, in the field of geriatric cardiology.

State of the science for care of older adults with heart disease

This article provided an overview of the current state of knowledge related to cardiovascular disease in elders. Some depth has been provided related to CHD and HF, two common diagnoses in older persons. The most striking finding is that although trials are increasingly including older cohorts of patients, research specifically testing known therapies in older patients is essential. In particular, research testing the safety, efficacy, and acceptability of therapies in the oldest old is greatly needed.

Identification of chest pain patients appropriate for an emergency department observation unit

There are no perfect tests or algorithms to exclude ACI. Because acute coronary occlusion often occurs in patients with low-grade coronary stenosis, the diagnostic goal of a chest pain diagnostic protocol is not to identify patients with CAD, but rather to identify patients who may be safely discharged home without the development of complications such as MI, unstable angina, death, shock, or CHF over the next 1 to 6 months. There is an advantage to evaluating patients at the time of their symptoms. Patients who have a small plaque that is ruptured, leading to intracoronary thrombosis and ischemia, will manifest ischemia on diagnostic testing that could missed in routine outpatient testing when their plaque were stable. The diagnosis and risk stratification of acute coronary ischemia in the ED depends on a careful history and interpretation of the ECG. Multiple regression models using readily available data (e.g., history, physical examination, and ECG) provide the best tools for risk stratification. If one is deciding how to select patients for an EDOU chest pain evaluation, diagnostic tools that have previously been tested and validated in this setting are preferable. These include the Multicenter Chest Pain Study derived tools (i.e., Goldman, Lee), the ACI and ACI-TIPI tools, and sestamibi risk stratification tools. This is not to say that other tools may not play a role at individual institutions. It is probably better to select a consistent approach and evaluate its performance, rather than to allow random variation to dictate practice. The future direction probably will involve standardization of the ED chest pain population. This allows outcome and cost-effectiveness comparative research of various strategies for patients with normal or nondiagnostic ECGs and normal biomarkers. Although this approach allows more precise stratification, the risk will never be zero, meaning that there will never be a substitute for good clinical judgment and close follow-up care.

[Elective noninvasive test in the diagnosis of coronary disease in the aged]

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to determine the best noninvasive test to diagnose coronary artery disease in the elderly. PATTERNS AND METHODS: We conducted a study on 56 elderly patients (> 65 years) with chest pain and no previous history of coronary artery disease. They underwent exercise stress test, dipyridamole echocardiography (0.84 mg/kg), dobutamine echocardiography (up to a total dose of 40 microgram/kg/min and atropine when it was necessary), dobutamine MIBI-SPECT and coronary angiography.

RESULTS

Angiography detected significant coronary artery disease in 41 patients. All tests used in this study had a similar sensitivity (conclusive exercise stress test 87%, dipyridamole echocardiography 83%, dobutamine echocardiography 80% and MIBI-SPECT 87%; p = NS). Coronary angiography did not identify significant lesions in 15 patients. Specificity of conclusive exercise stress test, dipyridamole and dobutamine echocardiography was similar (75%, 100% and 93% respectively; p = NS). However, the specificity of stress echocardiography was higher than that of scintigraphy (100% vs 66%; p = 0.02 for dipyridamole echocardiography and 93% vs 66%; p = 0.07 for dobutamine echocardiography). Diagnostic accuracy of each test was similar.

CONCLUSIONS

Exercise stress test remains the non invasive diagnostic test of choice to detect coronary disease in the elderly. If this test is inconclusive, both stress echocardiography and isotopic studies are useful, although the specificity of stress echocardiography is higher than that of scintigraphy.