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Published on: February 14, 2017

Impact of gender on risk stratification by stress echocardiography

Lauro Cortigiani1, Rosa Sicari, Riccardo Bigi

  • 1Division of Cardiology, Campo di Marte Hospital, Lucca, Italy.

The American Journal of Medicine
|March 11, 2009
PubMed

Insights

Stress echocardiography provides comparable prognostic value for men and women with coronary artery disease. Event rates varied by sex, ischemia presence, and diabetes, suggesting similar procedural access for both genders.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Diagnostic Imaging
  • Clinical Prognostics

Background:

  • Coronary artery disease (CAD) diagnosis and risk stratification are crucial for patient management.
  • Stress echocardiography is a widely used non-invasive imaging modality for evaluating CAD.
  • Understanding sex-specific prognostic differences in CAD is essential for personalized medicine.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare the prognostic value of stress echocardiography in men and women.
  • To assess outcomes in patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.
  • To determine if sex influences the predictive accuracy of stress echocardiography.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of 8737 patients (3208 women, 5529 men) undergoing stress echocardiography.
  • Evaluation of patients with known (3857) or suspected (4880) coronary artery disease.
  • Follow-up for cardiac events (mortality, myocardial infarction) and revascularization.

Main Results:

  • Stress echocardiography results provided significant prognostic information in both sexes.
  • In known CAD, women with ischemia had higher event rates than men.
  • In suspected CAD, men without ischemia had higher event rates than women, influenced by age and diabetes.

Conclusions:

  • Prognosis is comparable between men and women with and without ischemia on stress echocardiography.
  • Sex does not appear to be an independent factor in overall prognosis in this cohort.
  • Access to major procedures should be equitable for both genders in similar clinical scenarios.
Abstract

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