An Observational Study To Compare Males And Females Undergoing Thrombolysis For Acute Myocardial Infarction At A Referral Centre Of Bihar

Abstract

Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are among the major causes of morbidity and mortality globally. According to a report, ischemic heart disease caused 1.3 million deaths in adults aged 15 to 59 years. With this background, this study was planned to compare effects of gender on outcome of patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction. To remove the effect of age as confounding factors, this study included postmenopausal women and age matched males as the study population. Methodology: An observational follow-up study with 100 postmenopausal women as a study group and 100 age-matched men as a control group (in 1:1 ratio) was undertaken on patients of ACS admitted in the Department of Internal Medicine of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital, Patna, Bihar, India. The study duration was 1 year from January 2021 to December 2021. Postmenopausal women above 45 years of age and men more than 45 years of age diagnosed with ACS (as per European society of cardiology guidelines), [29] were included in the study. The diagnosis considered for inclusion was ST elevated acute myocardial infarction presenting to the hospital within 12 hours of onset of pain. Collected data was entered and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, IBM Chicago) ver. 21.0. Results: The mean age of postmenopausal women in the study was 62.7 ± 7.1 years and of men was 61.9 ± 8.2 years. Chest pain was the predominant symptom among both women and men. Previous myocardial infarction (MI), smoking and heavy alcohol consumption, and obesity were significant risk factors among men compared to postmenopausal women, while hypertension was the most common risk factor among women. Both hypertension and diabetes were seen more among women compared to men, however not statistically significant. Conclusions: Public awareness on identification of such symptoms can reduce the pre-hospital delay which is an important determinant of morbidity and mortality in ACS.