Does female sex affect the 15-year mortality risk in survivors of a first acute coronary episode compared to male sex?
After adjusting for baseline differences in prognostic factors, 15-year mortality risk following a first acute coronary episode is similar between men and women.
We report on the 15-year prognosis of 720 male and 246 female 28-day survivors of a first myocardial infarction or episode of unstable angina who were aged under 60 years at the time of admission to the study. Women were on average 1.9 years older than men, had higher cholesterol levels, a higher prevalence of hypertension and angina prior to admission and a higher proportion were lifetime non-smokers. Women were more likely to be admitted with unstable angina rather than infarction. When adjusted for age, smoking status, angina, hypertension and the difference in prevalence of infarction, women had a relative risk of death of 1.054 in a 15-year life table mortality analysis. Prognostic differences between the sexes reported may be the result of failure to allow for differences in other prognostic factors.
Robinson et al. (1992) studied this question.