Background: Women who undergo coronary angioplasty have a higher in-hospital mortality than men, although much of this difference can be accounted for by their poorer clinical characteristics at the time of their procedures. However, whether or not there are important long-term differences in outcome between women and men after coronary angioplasty is not clear.
Methods and results: A retrospective analysis was performed of 3027 consecutive patients (824 women and 2203 men) who underwent successful angioplasty and who have been followed continuously for a mean of 5.5 years (range, 0.5 to 14 years). Follow-up is 100% complete. Event-free survival was assessed by the Kaplan-Meier method, and clinical end points were also examined by Cox proportional-hazards models to account for important baseline differences when appropriate. There was a trend toward lower survival among women during follow-up, but this was not significant (P = .06). The relative risk of death among women compared with men after adjustment for baseline differences was 0.94 (CI, 0.76 to 1.15; P = NS). No significant sex differences in occurrence of Q-wave myocardial infarction were observed. Women were less likely to remain free of angina after 10 years (34% versus 37%, respectively; P = .008), but after adjustment for baseline differences, this difference was not significant (relative risk of angina, 1.07; CI, 0.95 to 1.21). Women tended to have less coronary artery bypass surgery performed during follow-up (P = .06); adjusting for baseline differences made this difference more significant (relative risk, 0.79; CI, 0.64 to 0.96; P = .02). Among patients who were not treated in the setting of acute infarction, no sex differences in survival and freedom from myocardial infarction were noted.
Conclusions: After successful coronary angioplasty, the long-term prognosis for women is excellent and is similar to that observed in men. Risk-adjusted survival did not differ significantly between the sexes, but less frequent use of subsequent surgical revascularization was observed in women.