Gender differences and predictors of mortality in spontaneous coronary artery dissection: a review of reported cases

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is a rare clinical event with little available information on etiology, treatment, or outcomes. Two cases of SCAD are presented and identified cases from the literature with complete data (n = 222) are reviewed and analyzed. Female patients (71.9%) were younger (40.4 versus 46.7; p < 0.001), less likely to have coronary artery disease (3.7 versus 20.6%; p = 0.01), more likely to have left anterior descending artery (46.4 versus 25.4%; p = 0.004) and left main artery involvement (14.9 versus 3.2%; p = 0.01), and less likely to survive (50.9 versus 22.2%; p < 0.001) compared to their male counterparts. Thirty percent were in the peripartum state. Multivariate predictors of death included female sex (OR 4.27; 95% CI 1.50 to 12.2), non-treatment (OR 35.5; 95% CI 10.7 to 118.1), and earlier decade of diagnosis (OR 0.28 per increase in decade after 1980; 95% CI 0.16 to 0.49). Survival was no different by treatment type and did improve over time.