Frailty weakens the link between age and heart attack deaths
Compared with patients under 65, those 75 and older had an adjusted odds ratio for in-hospital death of 1.81 if frail against 2.64 if non-frail.
Limit: Frailty was assessed by an administrative proxy score rather than physical frailty tests
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers tracked consecutive acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) patients admitted across 82 hospitals between January 2010 and 2024 in a retrospective cohort study. The non-frail group included 53,586 patients under 65 years, 19,106 aged 65 to 74, and 27,176 aged 75 or older; the frail group included 17,573, 22,399, and 18,000 patients in those respective groups, identified by a hospital frailty score.
Among non-frail patients, age 75 and older was associated with higher in-hospital mortality (an adjusted odds ratio of 2.64) and one-year mortality (an adjusted hazard ratio of 3.72) compared with age under 65. In frail patients, this association was substantially attenuated: patients 75 and older had an adjusted odds ratio of 1.81 for in-hospital mortality and an adjusted hazard ratio of 2.14 for one-year mortality. Differences between the 65-to-74 and under-65 groups were also diminished.
Why it matters
Heart attacks frequently affect older adults, but calendar age may not fully reflect a person's physiological reserves. Evaluating frailty alongside age could help clinicians better gauge mortality risk and personalize care for aging patients.
Caveats
The findings come from a retrospective observational study that used an administrative proxy score rather than physical frailty tests. The results were presented in a conference abstract and apply strictly to hospitalized heart attack patients.
The paper
Frailty attenuates the prognostic impact of age in acute myocardial infarction
2nd Hospital of Tianjin Medical University
ESC Congress 2026 Abstract, Oct 26, 2026
Presented at ESC Congress 2026
