Yale Research Finds Gender Differences in Complications from Angioplasty

A study by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health found that women under the age of 55 have a greater risk of complications after undergoing angioplasty than men of the same age group. Angioplasty is a nonsurgical procedure where a catheter is run through an artery and a balloon in inflated in an effort to improve blood flow.

Researchers examined more than 1 million cases over a period of years. In 2010, there were 162,360 angioplasty procedures performed on women in the United States.

The study found that women were twice as likely as men to experience bleeding and vascular complications including heart attack, congestive heart failure, stroke, and renal failure. Younger women were twice as likely to die in the hospital.

Judith H. Lichtman, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and researcher at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at the Yale School of Medicine, stated, “The numbers of women having these procedures is not insignificant. It is striking that the associations are even greater for younger women, which suggests that there is something physiologically different by age. Female patients may need to be managed differently.”

Dr. Lichtman, the lead author of the study, is a graduate of the University of Rochester. She holds a master of public health degree and a Ph.D. from Yale University.

The study was published on the website of the American Heart Journal. It may be accessed here.