Pacemaker Therapy in the Elderly and Very Elderly

Author Info

Alexander Marschall Andrea Rueda Liñares Belen Biscotti Rodil Montserrat Torres Lopez Carmen Dejuan Bitriá Cristina Fraile Sanz Juan Duarte Torres David Martí Sánchez Miguel Rubio Alonso Hugo del Castillo Carnevali

Corresponding Author

Alexander Marschall
Department of Cardiology, Central Defense Hospital, Madrid, Spain

A B S T R A C T

Background: The number of elderly patients undergoing pacemaker (PM) implantation is constantly growing. However, information on survival and prognostic factors of this particular patient group is scarce. The objective of this study was to determine the survival of elderly and very elderly patients undergoing PM implantation, as well as to investigate prognostic factors of mortality. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study of a single center. Patients ≥ 80 years of age, that underwent PM implantation between January 2017 and December 2018 in our center, were included for chart review. Very elderly patients were defined as those with ≥ 90 years of age. Results: A total of 269 patients were included in the study with a mean age of 85 (±4.1) years. 53 patients were ≥ 90 years of age. 52% of the patients were male. 24.5% of the elderly patients and 41.5% of the very elderly patients received a single chamber PM. Median follow-up time was 28 (14-30) months, with no significant differences between the two groups of patients. The mortality rate for elderly patients was 15.7% for the elderly and 32.1% for the very elderly (p = 0.002). Generating multivariate Cox regression models, the following parameters showed to be significant predictors of all-cause mortality: Age (1.37 (1.02-1.29), p = 0.005), chronic kidney disease (5.57 (2.47-12.56), p<0.001), COPD (3.74 (1.19-11.55), p = 0.023) and cancer (3.57 (1.02-12.51), p = 0.046). In the group of the very elderly only age (1.58 (1.10-2.27), p = 0.014) and cancer (3.76 (2.38-4.18), p = 0.003) significantly predicted mortality. Conclusion: Our study shows a good life expectancy of elderly and very elderly patients that underwent PM implantation, with a survival rate that is comparable to the general population. The primary prognostic factors were non-cardiological and comorbidities, such as chronic kidney disease, cancer and COPD, had a stronger association with mortality than age.

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Wed 27, Jan 2021
Accepted: Thu 11, Feb 2021
Published: Fri 26, Feb 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Alexander Marschall. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.JICOA.2021.01.10