Among heart attack patients 75 years and older, the oldest of those patients were less likely than younger patients to receive a procedure to open blocked arteries. But, older patients were more likely to survive heart attacks if they had the procedure, called percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI, according to a new research letter in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions, an American Heart Association journal.
Adults 75 years and older are a fast-growing age group, expected to make up 11.5 percent of the U.S. population by 2050. Yet, relatively little is known about whether it’s beneficial to perform PCI in these patients.