The Female Sex Confers Different Prognosis in Heart Failure: Same Mortality but More Readmissions

Introduction: Heart failure (HF) is a major cause of morbimortality both in men and women. Differences between sex in etiopathogenesis, response to treatment, and quality of care have been found in patients with HF. Females are usually under-represented in clinical trials and there is no solid evidence demonstrating the influence of sex in the prognostic of chronic HF. The primary objective of this study was to analyse the differences in mortality and probability of hospital readmission between males and females with HF. The secondary objective was to compare mortality and probability of hospital readmission by ejection fraction (reduced vs. preserved).Methods: Patients with decompensated HF that were consecutively admitted to a Cardiology Service of a tertiary hospital for 4 years were recruited. De novo HF, death during hospitalization, programmed admissions and those patients with moderate left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (40–50%) were discarded. Finally, 1,291 patients were included. Clinical profiles, clinical history, functional status, treatment at admission, first blood analysis performed, readmissions and mortality at follow-up were analyzed and compared. All patients underwent an echocardiographic study at admission. HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) was considered when left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was