Age differences in the delivery of cardiac management to women versus men with acute myocardial infarction: an evaluation of the TAMIS-II data.

It is of concern that women are more likely to undergo fewer diagnostic tests and receive less treatment for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) than men. Our retrospective Tokai Acute Myocardial Infarction Study (TAMIS) indicated that there were gender differences according to age groups; however, the exact nature of these gender differences remains unclear. Therefore, using data from TAMIS-II, we studied the influence of gender on the delivery of cardiac management according to 2 age groups (< 65, >or= 65). TAMIS-II is a prospective study of all consecutive patients admitted to the 15 acute care hospitals in the Tokai region with the diagnosis of AMI from 2001 to 2003. A total of 169 younger women, 1246 younger men, 616 older women, and 1240 older men were included. Data on patient demographics, in-hospital course, comorbid conditions, electrocardiography (ECG), ultrasound-echocardiogram (UCG), treadmill test (TMT), coronary angiography (CAG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG), intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP), mechanical ventilation, and in-hospital or discharge medications (thrombolytics, vasopressors, aspirin, beta-blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, calcium antagonists, nitrates) were collected. After controlling for these baseline variables, only lipid-lowering therapy tended to be more frequent in women than in men among the elderly (OR 1.55, 95%CI 1.00-2.38). The results from this Japanese chart review study, derived from detailed clinical data, indicated that the delivery pattern of cardiac management for female and male AMI patients during hospitalization and at discharge was very similar among the younger and older populations.