Invasive treatment strategy in patients aged 80 years or older with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Invasive treatment is commonly recommended for patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTE-ACS). However, the efficacy of this approach in patients aged ≥80 years remains uncertain. Methods: We retrospectively assessed consecutive NSTE-ACS patients ≥80 years of age who were hospitalized at our cardiovascular center from December 2012 to July 2019. Patients were divided into two groups based on whether they received invasive treatment (coronary angiography and, if indicated, revascularization) or not. Patients who died in the first 3 days after admission without receiving invasive treatment were excluded. The effect of invasive timed treatment was also explored by dividing patients into timely invasive or delayed invasive groups according to their risk classification. Multivariate COX regression, invasive probability weighting and propensity score matching were used to adjust for confounding variables. The primary outcome was all-cause death during follow-up. Results: A total of 1,201 patients with a median age of 82.0 (IQR, 81.0-84.0) were divided into two groups: 656 (54.6%) patients in the invasive group and 545 (45.4%) patients in the conservative group. Follow-up survival information was available for up to 6 years (median 3.0 years). During the follow-up, 296 (24.6%) patients died. After adjusting for confounding variables, the invasive treatment strategy was significantly associated with a lower risk of long-term mortality (HR =0.70, 95% CI: 0.54-0.92, P=0.010). No difference was found between timely invasive and delayed invasive interventions with mortality (HR =0.92, 95% CI: 0.57-1.47, P=0.725). Conclusions: Invasive treatment was associated with lower mortality in patients ≥80 years of age with NSTE-ACS over a median of a 3-year follow-up. The invasive intervention time did not impact the outcome.