May 3 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers have found that women with atrial fibrillation and flutter, or AFF, have an increased risk of death after being released from the emergency department than men.
AFF is an irregular heartbeat that is associated with blood clots to the brain and other organs, heart failure, and death. It affects roughly 2.66 million Americans and 350,000 Canadians.
The prevalence of AFF increases with age. About 5.9 percent of men and 2.8 percent of women between age 65 and 69 have it, and the rates increase to 8 percent in men and 6.7 percent in women after age 80.
Researchers found women hospitalized in the emergency department in hospitals in Alberta, Canada, with AFF had significantly higher death rates than men at 30 and 90 days post discharge.
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"As healthcare systems are stretched beyond their capacity, there are various pressures on the emergency departments," Rhonda J. Rosychuk, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta, said in a press release. "In Alberta, women were more likely to be discharged from the emergency department than men for acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina, stable angina, and chest pain. However, there are few data on the epidemiology of AFF in the emergency department setting, and sex differences are not well understood."
Researchers analyzed data on 21,062 patients, 47.5 percent of which were women, who were discharged from the emergency department after AFF between 1999 to 2011.
The study found women had higher death rates than men at 30 and 90 days after discharge even after adjustment for other demographic and health-related variables.
In the 30-time period after discharge, 234 of the patients in the study died, with 6 percent attributed as being from AFF. Of the deaths, 1.3 percent of patients were female and 0.9 percent were male.
Ninety days after discharge, there were 548 deaths, with 4.6 percent were reported as AFF, with 2.9 percent of patients being female and 2.4 being male.
"Sex and gender-based analyses provide opportunities for clinicians and researchers to identify health inequities and advocate for changes in health care delivery," Dr. Brian H. Rowe, scientific director at the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, said. "This research adds to accumulating evidence that women with cardiovascular disease may receive different management and experience worse outcomes than men."
The study was published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.
