Sex Differences in the Mortality Risk of Elderly Patients with Systolic Heart Failure in Taiwan

Sex differences in heart failure mortality might be affected by age, race, and treatment response. Many large studies in Western countries have shown conflicting results, however few studies have been conducted in Asian patients.

We prospectively investigated the mortality risk in a multicenter cohort of 1,093 male and 416 female heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) hospitalized for worsening symptoms in Taiwan between 2013 and 2015.

Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox proportional regression analyses were used to determine the one-year mortality risk by sex.

There were no significant differences in major adverse cardiovascular events, re-admission rate, and mortality between sexes in the overall cohort and the young subgroup during one-year of follow-up. In the elderly subgroup, the overall and cardiac mortality rate of the male patients were higher than those of the female patients (p = 0.035, p = 0.049, respectively). We found that the prognostic effect of old age on overall mortality rate appeared to be stronger in the male patients (p < 0.0001) than in the female patients (p = 0.69) in Cox regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Male sex was a risk factor for all-cause mortality in the elderly (hazard ratio: 1.50, 95% confidence interval 1.02-2.25) independently of systolic blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, hemoglobin concentration, kidney function, and medications.

In the Taiwan HFrEF registry, the highest mortality risk was observed in male patients aged 65 years or more. Clinicians need to pay more attention to these patients.