Gender aspects on survival among patients admitted to hospital with suspected or diagnosed heart failure.
OBJECTIVE
There are conflicting data on gender differences in survival among heart failure (HF) patients. We prospectively assessed gender differences in survival among 930 consecutive patients (464 [49.9%] women, mean age 76.1+/-10.1 years), admitted to hospital with suspected or diagnosed HF.


RESULTS
Overall, women had lower unadjusted mortality hazard ratio (HR) than men: HR 0.827; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.690-0.992; p=0.040. Adjusted HR was 0.786; 95% CI 0.601-1.028; p=0.079. Unadjusted mortality was significantly higher among patients with a discharge HF diagnosis, compared to those without: HR 1.330; 95% CI 1.107-1.597; p=0.002; adjusted p=0.289. Women and men with a discharge HF diagnosis had similar survival: unadjusted HR 1.052; 95% CI 0.829-1.336; p=0.674; adjusted HR 0.875; 95% CI 0.625-1.225; p=0.437. Women had lower mortality risk among patients without a discharge HF diagnosis: HR 0.630, 95% CI 0.476-0.833, p=0.001; adjusted HR 0.611, p=0.036.


CONCLUSIONS
Prognosis was poor among patients hospitalised with suspected or diagnosed HF. Among all patients, women had better survival, whereas both sexes had similar survival when the HF diagnosis was certified.
Tasevska-Dinevska
G
G
Lund University, Department of Cardiology, Malmö University Hospital, Sweden. Gordana.Tasevska@med.lu.se
Kennedy
L M
LM
Cline-Iwarson
A
A
Cline
C
C
Erhardt
L
L
Willenheimer
R
R
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D010351:Patient Discharge; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology; D016896:Treatment Outcome