[The female sex is an independent prognostic factor for mortality in the acute phase of myocardial infarction].

BACKGROUND

To assess the effect of female gender on mortality after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), we studied a cohort of 876 consecutive patients, being women 253 of them (28.8%), admitted to the intensive Care Unit (ICU) because of a first AMI, from September 1992 to October 1995.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

We compared the clinical characteristics, the complications and the treatment in both sexes. We estimated the relative risk using logistic regression, being the sex, the independent variable and dependent variables age, history of hypertension and diabetes, AMI location and thrombolytic treatment.

RESULTS

The age was higher and the history of hypertension and diabetes more frequent. The AMI location was less often inferior. Women received fibrinolytic treatment less frequently in women than in men. The mortality in the ICU was higher in the women (29.2 vs. 13.5% in the men) and, after adjusting for the previous factors the relative risk was 1.51 (95% confidence internal of 1.01-2.26).

CONCLUSIONS

In the population studied, the female gender is an independent risk factor for early mortality in the AMI.