TY - JOUR T1 - Gender-specific differences in clinical outcome of primary prevention implantable cardioverter defibrillator recipients JF - Heart JO - Heart SP - 1244 LP - 1249 DO - 10.1136/heartjnl-2013-304013 VL - 99 IS - 17 AU - Aafke C van der Heijden AU - Joep Thijssen AU - C Jan Willem Borleffs AU - Johannes B van Rees AU - Ulas Höke AU - Enno T van der Velde AU - Lieselot van Erven AU - Martin J Schalij Y1 - 2013/09/01 UR - http://heart.bmj.com/content/99/17/1244.abstract N2 - Objective To assess differences in clinical outcome of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) treatment in men and women. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting University Medical Center. Patients 1946 primary prevention ICD recipients (1528 (79%) men and 418 (21%) women). Patients with congenital heart disease were excluded for this analysis. Main outcome measures All-cause mortality, ICD therapy (antitachycardia pacing and shock) and ICD shock. Results During a median follow-up of 3.3 years (25th–75th percentile 1.4–5.4), 387 (25%) men and 76 (18%) women died. The estimated 5-year cumulative incidence for all-cause mortality was 20% (95% CI 18% to 23%) for men and 14% (95% CI 9% to 19%) for women (log rank p<0.01). After adjustment for potential confounding covariates all-cause mortality was lower in women (HR 0.65; 95% CI 0.49 to 0.84; p<0.01). The 5-year cumulative incidence for appropriate therapy in men was 24% (95% CI 21% to 28%) as compared with 20% (95% CI 14% to 26%) in women (log rank p=0.07). After adjustment, a non-significant trend remained (HR 0.82; 95% CI 0.64 to 1.06; p=0.13). Conclusions In clinical practice, 21% of primary prevention ICD recipients are women. Women have lower mortality and tend to experience less appropriate ICD therapy as compared with their male peers. ER -