Gender Disparities in Postoperative Outcomes after Mechanical Heart Valve Replacement Surgery: An Investigative Analysis

Objectives: To compare the pre- and post-operative factors among male and female patients of valvular heart surgery. Study design and settings: This retrospective observational study was conducted in the department of Cardiac surgery at Peshawar institute of Cardiology from Dec 2020 to March 2022. Methodology: This retrospective observational study included (n=165) adults, who underwent valvular surgery. Data was extracted from electronic medical record (EMR) and analyzed by using SPSS version 26.0. The study complied with ethical approval and the Helsinki Declaration. Results: Majority of the patients who underwent valvular surgery were in younger age group (age<45) with predominantly female as compared to male (60.4% vs 38.09%, p<0.05). Similarly, the results showed that most of the men underwent aortic valve surgery as compared to females, who underwent mitral valve surgery with statistically significant difference among gender at (p<0.05). Comparison of post-operative complications with respect to gender showed that arrythmias along with wound infection and mortality showed statistically significant difference among gender at (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study aimed to compare pre- and post-operative factors among male and female patients undergoing valvular surgery. The findings reveal significant gender-based differences in the distribution of age, types of valve surgery, and post-operative complications. However post operative and gender specific complications, hospital stay along with mortality associated with the type of valve procedure needs to be further explored. Detailed multicenter study and longterm follow up is needed to better analyze the long-term results and disease burden