Context: A higher mortality risk for women with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a common finding in studies that compare the postinfarction outcome of women vs men. It is not clear, however, whether sex is an independent predictor of death among patients systematically treated with aggressive reperfusion and medical strategies.
Objective: To assess the impact of patient's sex on outcome in a consecutive series of patients with AMI treated with a reperfusion strategy largely based on percutaneous coronary interventions.
Design, setting, and patients: Inception cohort of 1937 patients (502 women and 1435 men) who were admitted with a diagnosis of AMI to a tertiary referral institution between January 1995 and December 2000.
Main outcome measures: Mortality at 1 year after AMI.
Results: Compared with men, women were older (70 vs 61 years; P<.001) and had known diabetes or hypertension more often. Both men and women received essentially identical therapy with the majority of patients (86%) receiving reperfusion therapy via percutaneous coronary interventions. There were no significant differences in 1-year Kaplan-Meier death rates with 13.8% (68 cases) among women and 12.9% (184 cases) among men (unadjusted hazard ratio, 1.06; 95% confidence interval, 0.80-1.39; P =.70). After age adjustment, women had a lower risk of death (hazard ratio, 0.65; 95% confidence interval, 0.49-0.87; P =.004).
Conclusion: Despite their more advanced age and greater prevalence of diabetes or hypertension, women with AMI who were treated with a reperfusion strategy largely based on percutaneous coronary interventions show a similar outcome as men.