CHD, mortality risks lower in women vs men following myocardial infarction

Women appear to be substantially at lower risk of myocardial infarction (MI), coronary heart disease (CHD), and all-cause mortality than men following MI, suggests a recent study.

The authors analysed data for 171,897 women and 167,993 men aged ≥21 years with health insurance in the US who had MI hospitalization in 2015 or 2016. They matched MI patients by age and calendar year to 687,588 women and 671,972 men without CHD. Beneficiaries were followed until December 2017 for MI, CHD (ie, MI or coronary revascularization), and in Medicare for all-cause mortality.

Age-standardized rates of MI were 4.5 per 1,000 person-years (PY) in women and 5.7 per 1,000 PY in men without CHD (hazard ratio [HR], 0.64, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.62–0.67) and 60.2 per 1,000 PY in women and 59.8 per 1,000 PY in men with MI (HR, 0.94, 95 percent CI, 0.92–0.96).

CHD rates were 6.3 in women compared with 10.7 in men without CHD (HR, 0.53, 95 percent CI, 0.51–0.54) and 84.5 vs 99.3, respectively, among those with MI (HR, 0.87, 95 percent CI, 0.85–0.89). Finally, rates of all-cause mortality were 63.7 in women compared with 59.0 in men without CHD (HR, 0.72, 95 percent CI, 0.71–0.73) and 311.6 vs 284.5, respectively, among those with MI (HR, 0.90, 95 percent CI, 0.89–0.92).

“Women have lower age-specific rates of incident CHD than men,” the authors noted.