Women fare worse after heart ops

Heart bypass surgery is a common procedure

Women who undergo heart bypass operations have a worse quality of life than men having the same procedures, say US researchers.

Women tend to be older and sicker by the time they get an operation - but even after this is allowed for, the difference still remains.

Almost 300 patients were quizzed on their activities after surgery, and the women often produced worse results.

Experts think that differences in their physical makeup could be to blame.

There are clear benefits for both men and women with heart disease when they have a heart bypass operation.

The operation involves taking a blood vessel from elsewhere in the body and using it to replace a furred-up artery which should be supplying the heart muscle with blood.

Often two, three or even four heart arteries need to be replaced.

Not guaranteed

However, while it often relieves some of the more distressing symptoms of heart disease, such as angina and shortness of breath - and reduces the chance of a heart attack, the operation is far from a guarantee of a return to full health.

Women start worse than men, finish worse than men and have worse recovery profiles than men Dr Barbara Phillips-Bute, Duke University Medical Center

Researchers from Duke University Medical Center examined whether both men and women were getting the same level of benefit from the operation.

Dr Barbara Phillips-Bute, who led the study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, said that it was obvious that this was not the case.

"In many of the domains, women start worse than men, finish worse than men and have worse recovery profiles than men," she said.

Mental performance

The quality of life tests covered everything from the patient's perception of their own state of health to their mental state - and mental abilities such as short-term memory and concentration.

Heart bypass has been linked to cognitive decline because the technique can lead to tiny clots blocking blood vessels in the brain, causing subtle damage.

Dr Phillips-Bute made allowances in the results for the fact that many women are older and sicker when they are finally operated on, and still found that they performed worse at the tests after the operations compared with their male counterparts.

She said it was possible that the fact that women's heart arteries are generally smaller - and that blood vessels used in bypasses do not last as long - could mean that they do not get as much benefit from the procedure.

However, she said that women may not judge their quality of life in the same way as men.

"If the causes of lower quality of life in women are due more to environment or personality, this could account for the differences we saw in our analysis," she said.