Whether a surgeon’s sex aligns with that of their patient was ruled out as a driver of gender disparities in cardiac surgery outcomes, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association April 9.
The study looked at data from 223,065 Medicare beneficiaries undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting, surgical aortic valve replacement and/or proximal aortic surgery from 2010 to 2021, stratified by surgeon and patient sex.
Here are five takeaways from the study:
1. Fifty-nine percent of cases involved a patient and a surgeon who were both male, 28% a female patient with a male surgeon, 8.3% a male patient with a female surgeon and 3.8% a female patient and surgeon.
2. At 30 days, the mortality rate was 4.1% while the rate of mortality plus morbidity was 30.1%. There was no difference in the composite between men who were treated by a male versus female surgeon, or between women who were treated by a male versus female surgeon.
3. Although there was an imbalance between the concordant and discordant groups, on multivariable regression analysis the patient/surgeon mismatch was not independently associated with outcomes. There was also no interaction between patient sex and ex discondance for outcomes.
4. At five years, the morbidity and mortality rate was higher for male patients treated by a man (67.2%) than those treated by a woman (65.3%).
5. Among female patients, the five year morbidity and mortality rates were higher for those treated by a man compared with those treated by a woman — 75.7% compared with 74%. However, the discordance was not independently associated with outcomes.
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