[Reperfusion therapy for acute myocardial infarction in elderly patients]

Although there has been great progress in reperfusion therapy, the role of coronary reperfusion for elderly patients with acute myocardial infarction has not been fully investigated. In general, mean age of the subjects in major trials was about 60 years old and approximately only 10 to 15% of patients were over age 75. On the other hand, large-scale registries such as the US national registry of myocardial infarction (NRMI) showed a higher prevalence of elderly (especially women) in the clinical setting. This discrepancy may be due to the fact that elderly patients with myocardial infarction have some difficulties in the treatment such as severe multi-vessel coronary lesions, non-cardiac complications and relatively high prevalence of adverse reactions to reperfusion therapy. Here we focus on the situation of elderly patients (especially those 75 years or older) with myocardial infarction in the "real world" clinical setting, showing the clinical changes and outcome of our registry in rural Japan: the Kochi AMI (KAMI) registry.