Women and Cardiac Surgery

Why do women have a more complicated course and a poorer outcome after cardiac surgery than men? They certainly have to stay in hospital longer, and they tend to die more often. Specialists in Michigan have investigated this phenomenon, to see if they can discover the cause.

Over 9,000 Medicare patient hospitalized for CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) surgery had their case notes analyzed. Infection at any site during 100 days post-op was determined. It was found that 16.1% of the women had an infection involving the respiratory tract, urinary tract, digestive system, or skin, compared with 9.8% of the men. Statistical analysis showed that the excess mortality in women was clearly related to the increased risk of infection.

The next step is to find out why women have a higher rate of post-op infection, compared to men. We hope this will help doctors to eliminate this unfair gender discrimination by bacteria.