Trends in referral patterns, invasive management, and mortality in elderly patients referred for exercise stress testing.

Introduction: Scarce data are available on the temporal patterns in clinical characteristics and outcomes of elderly patients referred for exercise stress testing. We aimed to assess the trends in baseline characteristics, tests results, referrals for invasive management, and mortality in these patients.

Methods: We evaluated 11,192 patients aged ≥65years who were referred for exercise stress testing between January 1998 and December 2013. Calendar years were grouped into four quadrennia (1998-2001, 2002-2005, 2006-2009, and 2010-2013), and trends in clinical characteristics of the patients, type and results of the tests, referrals for invasive management, and mortality across the different periods were assessed.

Results: Despite a progressive decrease in the proportion of patients with non-interpretable baseline electrocardiograms or prior history of coronary artery disease, there was a gradual and marked increase in the use of cardiac imaging from 32.8% in 1998-2001 to 67.6% in 2010-2013 (p<0.001). In addition, despite a gradual decline in the probability of positive exercise stress testing both without imaging (from 18.9 to 13.6%, p<0.001) and with imaging assessment (from 40.2 to 29.7%, p<0.001), the cumulative rate of coronary revascularization at 1year increased (from 10.8 to 13.7%, p<0.001). One-year mortality also decreased progressively from 3% to 1.6% (p<0.001).

Conclusions: Among older adults referred for exercise stress testing, we observed a decline over time in the probability of inducible myocardial ischemia, an increase in the use of cardiac imaging and in the rate of coronary revascularization, and an improvement in the survival rate at 1year.