RESUMO
To examine the prevailing hypothesis that females fare worse than males after acute myocardial infarction, we compared short-term (15 days) and long-term (ten year) prognosis after acute myocardial infarction for the two sexes. Three thousand and seventy-three consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction were followed for 10 years after a first registration in the Danish Verapamil Infarction Trial database in 1979-81. Early mortality increased significantly with age (p < 0.0001), but was not significantly related to sex, with a 15 days mortality of 17% in females and 16% in males. Ten year mortality in patients alive day 15 was 58.8%. Hazard ratio for females versus males after adjustment for age was 0.90 (0.80-1.01). Ten year reinfarction rate was 48.8% with age adjusted hazard ratio for females versus males of 0.90 (0.78-1.04) and ten year mortality after reinfarction was 82.3%, with age adjusted hazard ratio in females versus males of 0.98 (0.82-1.16). No difference in cause of death was found between the two sexes. We conclude that sex by itself is not a risk indicator after acute myocardial infarction.
