Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Objective of this study was to examine the importance of metabolic syndrome (MetS) as a predictor of cardiovascular mortality in frail elderly people.

Methods: Participants of the study were 253 community dwelling elderly aged 65–99 years. It was a prospective study with 32 months follow-up period. Patients were divided into four main groups according to the presence of MetS and prior major cardiovascular event (MACE): group A – patients without MetS and without MACE – the control group; group B – patients with MetS, without MACE; group C – patients without MetS, with MACE; and group D – patients with MetS and with MACE. We used Cox proportional hazards regression model for survival analysis. The results are presented as relative risk (RR) and 95% CI. Statistically significant differences were P<0.05.

Results: The baseline mean age of participants was 82 years (78.3% women) (53.8% had prior MACE. During the study 109 patients (43.1%) died from cardiovascular cause of death. In our patients there was no statistically significant difference between four groups in functional ability, smoking habits and presence of hypertension. Women were more represented in groups with MetS compared with groups without MetS. Control group was statistically older than group D only. The best survival was in group B (75.9%), and the worst in group C (43.8%). Comparing to group B, participants in group C have almost three times higher risk for cardiovascular mortality (RR 2.978; 95% CI: 1.605–5.523; P=0.001), whereas participants in group D have 2.5 times higher cardiovascular mortality risk (RR 2.457; 95% CI: 1.273–4.744; P=0.01). Comparing to group A (the control group), only group C have statistically higher mortality rate (RR 1.894; 95% CI: 1.145–3.131; P=0.01).

Conclusion: In our study, presence of prior MACE, but not the presence of MetS raises risk for cardiovascular mortality in frail elderly people.