Background: Although previous studies have shown functional improvements in patients who undergo coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, data are conflicting on whether the gains achieved by women are similar to or less than those achieved by men.
Methods and results: We compared physical and psychological functional gains and readmission rates between 777 men and 295 women who underwent first CABG consecutively between February 1999 and February 2001. Physical function and mental health were measured by means of the Short Form 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36). At 6 months, both men and women showed, on average, a significant improvement in physical function and mental health, but men improved significantly more than women. After adjustment for baseline characteristics, the mean score improvement in women was half that of men for physical function (7.3 versus 14.0, P=0.0002) and 25% less than that of men for mental health (-3.0 versus 8.9, P=0.026). The absolute rates of adverse outcomes, such as hospital readmission, worsening functional status, and worsening mental health, were significantly higher in women (32.6%, 25.7%, and 17.5%, respectively) than in men (21.2%, 11.1%, and 12.6%, respectively) and remained significantly different in multivariable analysis.
Conclusions: CABG surgery is associated with lower functional gains and higher readmission rates in women compared with men 6 months after operation.