Evaluation of the influence of age and gender on the relationships between infarct size, infarct severity, and left ventricular ejection fraction in patients successfully treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention.
BACKGROUND
Female sex and advanced age have adverse prognostic meaning in acute myocardial infarction. Whether gender and/or age influence the relationship between infarct size, infarct severity, and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is unclear.


METHODS
We examined 460 patients (359 men) with acute myocardial infarction submitted to successful primary percutaneous coronary intervention. Infarct size, infarct severity, and LVEF were evaluated with perfusion gated SPECT at one month of index infarction.


RESULTS
There were no significant correlations between age and infarct size or infarct severity, and between age and LVEF. Moreover, elderly age (>or=75 years) did not influence the relationship between LVEF and infarct size or infarct severity. Conversely, there was a significant gender-related difference in the relationship between LVEF and infarct size (F = 20.5, P < .00001), and between LVEF and infarct severity (F = 8.6, P < .005). In practice, there was a steeper decrease in LVEF in case of moderate to large infarct size in women than in men.


CONCLUSIONS
With increasing infarct size, LVEF decreases more sharply in women than in men. Conversely, age does not influence the relationship between infarct dimensions and LVEF.
Nuclear Medicine Unit, Department of Clinical Physiopathology, University of Florence, Viale Morgagni 85, 50134 Florence, Italy. r.sciagra@dfc.unifi.it
Roberto
R
Sciagrà
Guido
G
Parodi
Angela
A
Migliorini
Gentian
G
Memisha
David
D
Antoniucci
Alberto
A
Pupi
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary; D055426:Cardiac-Gated Single-Photon Emission Computer-Assisted Tomography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013318:Stroke Volume; D055815:Young Adult