Association of cardiovascular disease with critically elderly patients' mortality

Background

The mortality of elderly patients who are admitted to intensive care units (ICU) has been the aim of some recent studies. However, there are few works that present the association of cardiovascular disease with the mortality of these patients.

Objective

To show the association of previous cardiovascular diseases and/or cardiac failure with the mortality of elderly patients who are considered critically ill during the ICU stay.

Methods

Study of a prospective cohort enrolling 1120 patients admitted to a clinical ICU in the period from April 2000 to December 2002, in which 62 patients who had septic shock and hemodynamic monitoring with a pulmonary artery catheter were included. The mortality was analysed by correlating it with age and with the patients who had previous cardiovascular disease or acquired cardiac failure during the septic shock (n = 40), lack of previous cardiovascular disease and/or acquired cardiac failure (n = 22), and previous cardiovascular disease (n = 34). The significance level was 5% using analysis of variance, and a descriptive analysis was performed.

Results

The Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation mean score was 20 ± 5.28 (range 8–29). The mean age was 80 ± 7.43 (range, 65–96) and its influence on these patients' mortality was not significant (P = 0.31). The presence of the previous cardiovascular disease and/or cardiac failure (P = 0.001) and of the previous cardiovascular disease (P = 0.001) showed a relevant correlation with mortality, while the lack of the previous cardiovascular disease and/or acquired cardiac failure presented a correlation with ICU discharge (P = 0.013).

Conclusion

The age itself did not affect the mortality of the critically ill elderly population. The presence of cardiovascular disease seems to play an important role in the elderly patients' mortality.