Background

Patients with high bleeding risk (HBR) may exhibit uncertain adherence to dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) following drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. The current population-based cohort study aimed to investigate the sex-based differences in adverse outcomes among HBR population by analyzing the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan.

Methods

Patients who had HBR features defined by the Academic Research Consortium (ARC) and received DES implantation between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2017, were enrolled. Propensity score matching was adopted to select 3,981 pairs with similar clinical cardiovascular risks but different sex. A competing risk model was performed to evaluate the risk of adverse ischemic events (cardiac death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and ischemic stroke) and any bleeding events in both sexes. Noncardiac death was considered a competing risk.

Results

Within a 5-year follow-up, the incidence rates (per 1000 person-year (95% confidence interval (CI)) of composite ischemic events and any bleeding events in males were respectively 44.09 (40.25–48.30) and 42.55 (38.79–46.68), while those in females were respectively 40.18 (36.51–44.23) and 42.35 (38.57–46.51). After adjustment for clinical variables, male patients had a marginally increased risk in the composite ischemic events (adjusted subdistribution hazard ratio (SHR) = 1.15 (1.00–1.31), p = 0.045) and a similar risk of any bleeding events (adjusted SHR = 1.00 (0.88–1.15), p = 0.946) compared with female patients.

Conclusions

Of HBR population, males had an increased risk of ischemic outcomes but a similar risk of bleeding compared with females following DES implantation.