Sex differences in coronary artery calcium and mortality from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and all causes in adults with diabetes: The coronary calcium consortium

Nathan D. Wong, Amber R.Cordola Hsu, Alan Rozanski, Leslee J. Shaw, Seamus P. Whelton, Matthew J. Budoff, Khurram Nasir, Michael D. Miedema, John Rumberger, Michael J. Blaha, Daniel S. Berman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

OBJECTIVE While diabetes has been previously noted to be a stronger risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women compared with men, whether this is still the case is not clear. Coronary artery calcium (CAC) predicts coronary heart disease (CHD) and CVD in people with diabetes; however, its sex-specific impactislessdefined. We compared the relation of CAC in women versus men with diabetes for total, CVD, and CHD mortality. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We studied adults with diabetes from a large registry of patients with CAC scanning with mortality follow-up over 11.5 years. Cox regression examined the relation of CAC with mortality end points. RESULTS Among 4,503 adults with diabetes (32.5% women) aged 21–93 years, 61.2% of women and 80.4% of men had CAC >0. Total, CVD, and CHD mortality rates were directly related to CAC; women had higher total and CVD death rates than men when CAC >100. Age-and risk factor–adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) per log unit CAC were higher among women versus men for total mortality (1.28 vs. 1.18) (interaction P 5 0.01) and CVD mortality (1.47 vs. 1.27) (interaction P 5 0.04) but were similar for CHD mortality (1.48 and 1.48). For CVD mortality, HRs with CAC scores of 101–400 and >400 were 3.67 and 6.27, respectively, for women and 1.63 and 3.48, respectively, for men (interaction P 5 0.04). For total mortality, HRs were 2.56 and 4.05 for women, respectively, and 1.88 and 2.66 for men, respectively (interaction P 5 0.01). CONCLUSIONS CAC predicts CHD, CVD, and all-cause mortality in patients with diabetes; however, greater CAC predicts CVD and total mortality more strongly in women.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2597-2606
Number of pages10
JournalDiabetes care
Volume43
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Internal Medicine
  • Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
  • Advanced and Specialized Nursing

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