A new study led by the University of Michigan has found that women are more likely than men to die after experiencing complications from high-risk heart surgeries, despite having a similar risk of developing these complications.
The study examined over 850,000 cases of Medicare patients who had undergone surgeries such as heart bypass, aortic aneurysm repair, and mitral or aortic valve repair between 2015 and 2020.
The term “failure to rescue” refers to a patient dying from complications after surgery.
In this study, both men and women had similar rates of complications—around 15%—but the outcomes were significantly worse for women. Surgical teams failed to rescue women 10.7% of the time, compared to 8.6% for men.
These results were published in JAMA Surgery.
Dr. Catherine M. Wagner, the study’s lead author, emphasized that this issue affects the entire U.S. healthcare system.
“We are failing to rescue women after high-risk surgery, even though they have similar complication rates to men,” she said.
Wagner called for better recognition and response to complications to close the gap between men and women after surgery.
The most common complications for both men and women were kidney failure, pneumonia, and lung failure.
Surprisingly, the quality of the hospital did not affect the failure to rescue rates between men and women.
Women were more likely to receive surgery at hospitals that handle higher volumes of high-risk procedures, yet they still faced worse outcomes.
Dr. Gorav Ailawadi, co-author and chair of cardiac surgery at the University of Michigan, suggested that women’s complications may not be addressed quickly enough. He pointed out that women had a lower rate of reoperation, which could indicate that their complications were not being managed as effectively as men’s.
For years, researchers have known that women are more likely to die after cardiovascular surgeries. This has often been attributed to the fact that women tend to be older and have more health issues than men when they undergo surgery.
Additionally, women’s smaller anatomy can make surgeries more challenging. However, the study found that even after adjusting for these factors, women still had higher death rates following complications.
Dr. Andrew Ibrahim, co-author and professor of surgery at the University of Michigan, stressed the need for better care after complications occur. “We need to improve how quickly we recognize and respond to complications in female patients to prevent them from becoming life-threatening,” he said.
The study highlights the ongoing need for better representation of women in medical research and improved efforts to address the disparities in healthcare outcomes between men and women.
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