title: The stress echo prognostic gender gap.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether myocardial ischaemia elicitable during pharmacological stress echocardiography portends different prognosis in men and women.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study group was made by 1733 patients (941 men, 792 women) who underwent dipyridamole (n=1008) or dobutamine (n=725) stress echo for evaluation of known or suspected coronary artery disease. An ischaemic response was found in 460 patients (308 men, 152 women). Considering the whole ischaemic population, women were older (P<0.0001) and more likely to have hypertension (P=0.02) and hypercholesterolaemia (P=0.04) than men. No difference in age and risk factors was evidenced between the two sexes in the subset of 203 patients with ischaemia and suspected coronary artery disease. During follow-up (25 +/- 24 months for the ischaemic and 37 +/- 25 months for the non-ischaemic sample), there were 113 cardiac events (45 deaths and 68 infarctions) and 232 revascularizations. Revascularization rate in ischaemic population was similar in both sexes (P=0.36). Multivariate predictors of cardiac events in the whole ischaemic group were resting WMSI (HR=2.7, 95% CI 1.3--3.3;P=0.0050), female gender (HR=2.2, 95% CI 1.2--3.7;P=0.0062), age > or = l65 years (HR=1.9, 95% CI=1.0--3.6;P=0.0427), and Delta WMSI (HR=2.1, 95% CI=1.0--3.7;P=0.0447). Female gender (HR=2.7, 95% CI 1.1--6.3;P=0.0233) was the only independent prognostic predictor in patients with ischaemia and suspected coronary artery disease. Five-year infarction-free survival was 82% in men and 71% in women in the whole ischaemic population (P=0.0041) as well as in the ischaemic group with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) (P=0.0175). In the non-ischaemic sample resting WMSI (HR=4.8), history of myocardial infarction (HR=2.5), and hypercholesterolaemia (HR=1.8) were independent predictors of outcome at multivariate analysis, whilst the gender had no prognostic importance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results show that female gender is an independent predictor of cardiac events in patients with myocardial ischaemia induced by pharmacological stress echocardiography.
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Castelfranco Veneto (Treviso), Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cortigiani
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gigli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vallebona
authors.forename: P R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Mariani
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bigi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Desideri
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002316:Cardiotonic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D004176:Dipyridamole / Q000494:pharmacology; D004280:Dobutamine / Q000494:pharmacology; D025401:Echocardiography, Stress; D023381:Endpoint Determination; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D012307:Risk Factors; D012723:Sex; D012737:Sex Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014665:Vasodilator Agents / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D002316:Cardiotonic Agents; D014665:Vasodilator Agents; D004280:Dobutamine; D004176:Dipyridamole