Gender difference in the risk for cardiovascular events or mortality of patients with diabetic foot syndrome

Abstract

Aims: Diabetic foot syndrome (DFS) increases the risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), chronic kidney disease (CKD), or mortality. The present study aims at ascertaining whether such DFS-related excess risk differs between genders, retrospectively investigating a population with diabetes from Tuscany, Italy, followed-up for 6 years (2011-2016).

Methods: People with diabetes living in Tuscany on January 1st 2011 identified by administrative databases, were divided by baseline history of prior DFS hospitalizations, stratified by presence/absence of peripheral vascular disease and evaluating, by Cox regression analysis, whether adjusted DFS-related excess risk of incident ASCVD, CKD or mortality differed between genders.

Results: In an overall population of 165,650 subjects with diabetes (81,829M/83,821F), basal prevalence of DFS was twice higher among males, who were moreover at a significantly greater risk of all considered outcomes along the 6-year period. On the contrary, baseline DFS significantly increased the hospitalization risk for ASCVD, CKD and mortality equally or at a slightly greater extent in females, while the risk for stroke was significantly associated with DFS only among females (HR: 1.622 (1.314-1.980); p = 0.0001 vs. HR: 1.132 (0.955-1.332); p = NS). This finding was even reinforced in non-vascular DFS, which was associated with a significant raised risk for stroke, heart failure or mortality exclusively in females.

Conclusions: In this population, DFS prevalence and overall risk for ASCVD, CKD or mortality were significantly higher among males. Baseline co-presence of DFS, however, conferred a similar adjusted risk for all these outcomes between genders, and in case of non-vascular DFS the risk was significantly increased only among females.

Keywords: Cardiovascular diseases; Chronic kidney disease; Diabetic foot syndrome; Gender; Mortality.