Prognostic value of frailty in elderly patients with acute coronary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Frailty is common and associated with poorer outcomes in the elderly, but its prognostic value in acute coronary syndromes (ACS) requires clarification. We thus undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between frailty and poor prognosis in patients with ACS. METHODS: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase to find literatures which studied the prognostic value of frailty in elderly patients with ACS. Our main endpoints were the all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD), major bleeding and readmissions. We pooled studies using random-effect generic inverse variance method, and conducted three pre-specified subgroup analyses. RESULTS: Of 1216 identified studies, 15 studies were included in our analysis. Compared with the normal group, frailty (HR = 2.65; 95%CI: 1.81–3.89, I(2) = 60.2%) and pre-frailty (HR = 1.41; 95%CI: 1.19–1.66, I(2) = 0%) were characterized by a higher risk of mortality after adjustment. Frailty also was associated with increased risk of any-type CVD, major bleeding and hospital readmissions in elderly patients with ACS. The pooled effect sizes in frail patients were 1.54 (95%CI: 1.32–1.79), 1.51 (95%CI: 1.14–1.99) and 1.51 (95%CI: 1.09–2.10). CONCLUSIONS: Frailty provides quantifiable and significant prognostic value for mortality and adverse events in elderly ACS patients, helping doctors to appraise the comprehensive prognosis risk and to applicate appropriate management strategies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-019-1242-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.