Secondary prevention of coronary heart disease in elderly population of Turkey: A subgroup analysis of ELDERTURK study

Background: Secondary prevention plays an important role after acute coronary event due to high risk of adverse events in elderly. In present study we aimed to evaluate the lifestyle, management of risk factors and medical treatment for secondary protection in elderly patients with known coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods: ELDERTURK is a non-interventional, multi-centered, observational study, which included total of 5694 elderly patients (>65 years) from 50 centers in Turkey. In this study elderly patients from the ELDERTURK population with known CHD were evaluated for cardiovascular risk factors, comorbidities and medication usage. Results: A total of 2976 (52.3% of study) out of 5694 patients included in the ELDERTURK study were evaluated. All had known CHD with a mean age of 73.4 +/- 6.2 years and 60.3% were male. 13.0% of patients were smokers, 42.4% were overweight and 21.1% were obese. Only 23.6% of patients reported to do regular exercise, 73.4% had history of hypertension, 47.4% had dyslipidemia and 33.9% had diabetes mellitus. The rate of patients with systolic blood pressure > 140 mmHg were 31.1% and only 13.9% of patients had a recommended <= 70 mg/dL level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Antiplatelet, statin, beta-blocker and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker usage was limited to 27.3%. Conclusions: The ELDERTURK study shows that many patients with CHD have a high prevalence of modifiable risk factors and unhealthy lifestyle. Apart from this, many patients are not receiving therapeutic intervention and as a consequence most were not achieving the recommended goals.