[Acute myocardial infarction onset, course and short-term outcome in men and women]

Specific features of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) onset and course, short-term outcome and its causative factors have been analysed for women and men by the data from Register of Acute Myocardial Infarction of the city of Tomsk for 1994-1998 (a total of 3717 cases). It is shown that AMI men die largely of cardiogenic shock (CS), congestive heart disease (CHD) and cardiac arrhythmia. Death of AMI women was caused primarily by CS, CHD and rupture of the myocardium. For women the unfavourable factors for an AMI outcome were the following: an atypical clinical presentation, a symptomless preinfarction period, prior AMI, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, a complicated course, extensive and transmural lesion, acute cardiac aneurysm. For men the additional to these are previous angina and brain stroke. The short-term AMI outcome in women is more unfavourable than in men.