Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the influence of gender on in hospital outcome in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) who underwent primary angioplasty (PA).
Design and scope: Prospective study of a cohort of patients consecutively admitted to the Coronary Unit of a tertiary hospital in the period of January to October 2004 with the diagnoses of IAMEST and treated with PA.
Patients: Consecutive sample of 86 patients with this diagnosis divided into two groups based on sex: 52 men and 34 women.
Main variables of interest: In both groups, we analyzed the baseline clinical-demographic characteristics, extension of the coronary disease (ECD), success of the PA, appearance of heart failure (HF) and in-hospital mortality in the first 28 days after admission. We analyzed predictors of mortality in a multivariate model.
Results: The women were older (70+/-8 versus 65+/-11; p=0.02) and had greater prevalence of diabetes (37% versus 18%; p=0.002) and hypertension (58% versus 37%; p<0.001) than the men while the men had greater frequency of smoking (34% versus 22%; p=0.001). There were no differences in the presence of hyperlipidemia, ECD or the success of PA. Women had a higher incidence of HF on admission (22% versus 12%; p=0.01) and in-hospital mortality (17% versus 8%; p=0.002). In the multivariate analyses, female sex and HF on admission continued to be predictors of in-hospital mortality.
Conclusions: In our study, female gender was an independent predictor of in-hospital mortality in patients with IAMEST treated with PA.