[Does the short-term mortality differ between men and women with first acute myocardial infarction?]

Women with myocardial infarction (MI) have been reported to have worse short-term prognosis than men. We aimed to compare men and women with first MI regarding 28 days survival, cardiovascular (CV) risk factors, clinical findings, and the treatment in the emergency setting.

One-hundred and seventy-five consecutive patients with first MI admitted to the emergency department of our hospital within one year were included in the study. Data on admission time, CV risk factors, clinical findings and treatment options were obtained from the patient charts. Twenty-eight days after the first admission, patients were called by phone and asked information about their health status. Survival curves for men and women were compared using log rank test.

After the exclusion of 20 cases who were lost during the follow up, 117 men and 38 women were evaluated in the study; 9.4% of the men and 10.5% of the women died within 28 days (p=0.85). Women were older (10 years), had higher prevalence of hypertension (p=0.04), diabetes (p=0.01) and stroke history (p=0.02) than men. Men had higher levels of smoking history than women (79.1%, 31.6%; p<0.001). There were no significant gender differences regarding clinical findings, time to hospital admission after chest pain onset and time to thrombolysis. Thrombolysis was applied in 35.8% of women and in 48.6% of men patients. Primary PTCA was performed in 26.4% of men and 11.4% of women patients (p=0.16).

Women tended to be older and had more co-morbidities, but did not differ from men regarding clinical findings, treatment given in emergency department and short-term survival.