Impact of gender on in-hospital mortality of patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention: an evaluation of the TAMIS-II data.
OBJECT
It is a matter of concern that women have higher in-hospital mortality rates than men with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), however, it is not yet clear whether significant gender differences exist. We studied the influence of gender on the characteristics and in-hospital mortality among patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).


METHODS
We used data from 15 acute care hospitals included in the sample from the Tokai Acute Myocardial Infarction Study II (TAMIS-II), a prospective study of all patients admitted to these hospitals from 2001 to 2003 with a diagnosis of AMI. We abstracted the baseline and procedural characteristics from detailed chart reviews which included not only physician notes but also nursing notes, and a questionnaire which included baseline characteristics, procedural course and in-hospital mortality. Multivariate analysis was performed, controlling for age and other variables which were found to be significantly different between men and women by chi-square test or unpaired t test.


PATIENTS
A total of 566 women and 2,048 men were included in the present study.


RESULTS
There were gender differences in age, comorbid conditions, smoking status, body mass index, activities of daily livings, heart failure on presentation, duration of stay, angiographic data, transfer to ICU/CCU, and thrombolytic drugs. In univariate analysis, women had a higher in-hospital mortality rate than did men; however, this gender difference disappeared after adjustment for age and other variables.


CONCLUSION
Our study demonstrated that women with AMI who undergo PCI do not have a higher in-hospital mortality rate than men.