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. 2021 Oct;98(4):E531-E539.
doi: 10.1002/ccd.29774. Epub 2021 May 17.

The DISCO study-Does Interventionalists' Sex impact Coronary Outcomes?

Prasanthi Yelavarthy  1 , Milan Seth  1 , Elizabeth Pielsticker  2 , Cindy L Grines  3 , Claire S Duvernoy  1   4 , Devraj Sukul  1   4 , Hitinder S Gurm  1   4
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Free article

The DISCO study-Does Interventionalists' Sex impact Coronary Outcomes?

Prasanthi Yelavarthy et al. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv. 2021 Oct.
Free article

Abstract

Objectives: To examine the association of operator sex with appropriateness and outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Background: Recent studies suggest that physician sex may impact outcomes for specific patient cohorts. There are no data evaluating the impact of operator sex on PCI outcomes.

Methods: We studied the impact of operator sex on PCI outcome and appropriateness among all patients undergoing PCI between January 2010 and December 2017 at 48 non-federal hospitals in Michigan. We used logistic regression models to adjust for baseline risk among patients treated by male versus female operators in the primary analysis.

Results: During this time, 18 female interventionalists and 385 male interventionalists had performed at least one PCI. Female interventionalists performed 6362 (2.7%) of 239,420 cases. There were no differences in the odds of mortality (1.48% vs. 1.56%, adjusted OR [aOR] 1.138, 95% CI: 0.891-1.452), acute kidney injury (3.42% vs. 3.28%, aOR 1.027, 95% CI: 0.819-1.288), transfusion (2.59% vs. 2.85%, aOR 1.168, 95% CI: 0.980-1.390) or major bleeding (0.95% vs. 1.07%, aOR 1.083, 95% CI: 0.825-1.420) between patients treated by female versus male interventionalist. While the absolute differences were small, PCIs performed by female interventional cardiologists were more frequently rated as appropriate (86.64% vs. 84.45%, p-value <0.0001). Female interventional cardiologists more frequently prescribed guideline-directed medical therapy.

Conclusions: We found no significant differences in risk-adjusted in-hospital outcomes between PCIs performed by female versus male interventional cardiologists in Michigan. Female interventional cardiologists more frequently performed PCI rated as appropriate and had a higher likelihood of prescribing guideline-directed medical therapy.

Keywords: appropriateness; gender; interventional; outcomes; sex.

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