A joint research team has recently found no sex-related impact on long-term risk of major adverse cardiac or cerebrovascular events (MACCE) after receiving a coronary intervention or bypass grafting.

The team’s 10-year follow-up of the PRECOMBAT trial demonstrated similar rates of major adverse cardiac or cerebrovascular events (MACCE) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in both males and females without significant interaction between sex and the relative treatment effect.

It pointed out conflicting findings on female subjects having poorer outcomes in left main coronary artery (LMCA) disease than male subjects. In prior reports, no significant sex-related interaction affects clinical outcomes for up to five years, but other studies reported different results.

Researchers evaluated 10-year clinical outcomes of 600 patients with LMCA disease who underwent revascularization.

They received PCI with stent or CABG in 13 hospitals in Korea between April 2004 and August 2009 from the extended PRECOMBAT trial.

The primary endpoint was the 10-year incidence of MACCE, defined as a composite of death from any cause, myocardial infarction, stroke, or ischemia-driven revascularization. The secondary endpoint was individual components of the primary endpoint and occlusion of stent or graft.

After the research team -- led by Professor Yang Yu-jin of the Department of Cardiology at Asan Medical Center -- analyzed the primary and secondary outcomes of the study, it discovered that the incidence of MACCE was not very different between men and women at 10 years.

“We used PRECOMBAT trial with first-generation stent eluting drug in our study. So comparing long-term results from large-sized clinical trials on patients receiving PCI with latest generation stent may bolster understanding of the long-term effects of sex and treatments in patients with LMCA disease,” a researcher said.