Gender Differences in Failure-to-Rescue After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting.

ABSTRACT Background Female patients experience worse outcomes following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). We investigated whether rates of failure-to-rescue (FTR), a systems-based quality indicator, were greater in women who underwent CABG. Methods A retrospective review was conducted on 20,045 patients who underwent isolated, non-emergent CABG between January 2002 and August 2019 at a single academic center. FTR was defined as postoperative death within 30 days after stroke, renal failure, reoperation, and prolonged ventilation. Propensity-score matching was performed utilizing preoperative variables, excluding gender. Results 4,980 propensity-score matched pairs were identified. In the matched analysis, women experienced higher rates of postoperative stroke (1.9% vs. 1.2%; p = 0.008), prolonged ventilation (13.3% vs. 10.0%, p Conclusions Women who underwent isolated, non-emergent CABG had statistically similar frequencies of FTR compared to their male counterparts despite experiencing greater rates of morbidity and mortality. Further efforts to narrow the gender outcome gap after CABG should focus on preoperative and intraoperative phases of care instead of postoperative management.