Sex no influence in Heart Surgery Outcome

Both men and women experience improvements in their in physical, social, and emotional well-being after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, and recovery over time is not markedly different between the sexes.

Both men and women experience improvements in their in physical, social, and emotional well-being after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, and recovery over time is not markedly different between the sexes. That’s according to a study in which researchers evaluated health-related quality-of-life up to one year after CABG in 405 men and in 269 women — adequate numbers to make a valid comparison between the sexes. Before surgery, women were older and more debilitated than men, mirroring the findings of previous studies. Women also had less favorable physical, social, and emotional functioning scale scores than their male counterparts. After surgery, many of these differences remained, but both men and women reported feeling better than before surgery and had “similar patterns of recovery in health-related quality-of-life,” the authors report in the December issue of the American Heart Journal. Six weeks after CABG, both men and women had less anxiety and depressive symptoms than before surgery, and six months to one year later both sexes saw significant improvement in physical and social functioning. This study shows that “women benefit from CABG as much as men,” Dr. Michael L. Terrin from the Maryland Medical Research Institute in Baltimore told Reuters Health. “Physical and emotional recovery from CABG surgery is not immediate and differs for different aspects of quality-of-life,” he added. These results are “important” and “reassuring as to whether women attain equal benefit than men after this common procedure,” Dr. Viola Vaccarino from Emory University in Atlanta writes in an editorial. “Until more data are gathered, there is no basis for discouraging the use of CABG surgery for the improvement of quality of life of women with coronary heart disease,” she concludes. (Source: American Heart Journal, Reuters Health, Dec 2003)