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American Morning

Study: Heart Bypass Surgery May be More Dangerous for Women Than Men

Aired February 20, 2002 - 09:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A new study shows that heart bypass surgery may be more dangerous for women than for men.

For more on this study, we are joined by our Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the CNN Center in Atlanta.

Good morning, Dr. Gupta.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Anderson.

Well, I'll tell you, you know, coronary bypass or heart bypass operation is one of the most common operations done in America. About 500,000 of those done every year. Remarkably, about 150,000 of those are done in women. That's something people don't typically think of. So it's certainly providing a lot of data now, in exactly how these women are doing, and how they're doing with respect to men.

Some of the results are a little concerning as you mentioned. First of all, in women across all age groups, all age groups at particular are at higher risk if they are women compared to a man. Most striking, though, is the women who are under age 50. In that age group, women are three times more likely not to survive after a heart operation as compared to a man.

Now while that's some data, Anderson, that does raise a lot of questions, and researchers have looked into why that may be and some interesting possibilities, hypothesis, if you will, into why that is. First of all, again, people just don't think of women and heart disease as going together. So a lot of times women don't actually get referred early enough to get their heart problems taken care of. They're referred late. They are underdiagnosed.

Second of all, they are just mechanically doing the operation itself is a little bit more challenging in women, because the arteries that they are actually operate on are oftentimes smaller.

And finally, there are some unknown risk factors, which researchers are still trying to figure out as to why in women the risk would actually be higher as compared to men. We don't know the answer to those questions. Those are some things we are going to have to try and figure out.

Bottom line, though, is that if you're a women, the significance of heart disease might be something that has gone underestimated, and second of all, it does not mean that bypass surgery is necessarily dangerous for women. Certainly the women who get the bypass operation do better than women who don't. But these are some concerning results, Anderson.

COOPER: It is sort of a confusing study. We've been getting a lot of e-mails about it all morning, and we wanted to just pass on four of them to you to see if you could answer them.

Rebecca Olson writes in, saying "I was under the impression that estrogen was beneficial for the heart."

GUPTA: Right, and that's sort of the very, very crux of the problem, because a lot of people had thought that women, because they do produce estrogen, are oftentimes protected from heart disease. We actually talked to the researchers of that study about that very issue, and what they say is that in most cases, estrogen can be protective, but there are certain cases now where they are finding out that estrogen in fact not only does it not protect, it actually paradoxically causes some inflammation in the arteries, and actually might make it worse, and those women can have very aggressive forms of heart disease and might not do very well.

COOPER: All right. Mille, Nashville writes in, "I was recently diagnosed with heart disease and would like to know if plaque can be removed without surgical intervention. Does diet and exercise reverse heart disease or prevent it from worsening?"

GUPTA: Right, well for the most part, diet and exercise will prevent heart disease from worsening. Once you actually have developed plaque in these small blood vessels in your heart, it's pretty hard to actually get rid of them without some sort of intervention, either an angioplasty or an operation. But you can certainly make it so that you never have any signs or symptoms of heart disease if you do diet and exercise before you ever develop any problems.

COOPER: Next e-mail from D.L. Nicholson, "I have a heart bypass in March of 1893, two subsequent heart attacks in April of 2000 and May of 2001. How many years does the average bypass last."

GUPTA: Well, I'll tell you, that's a topic true to my heart. My father actually also had bypass surgery that was back in '91. He's still doing fine. But what most surgeons will say is that typically, a bypass will last between 10-15 years or so, and depending on how closely it's monitored, depending on how well someone actually follows their medication and diet regimen after they've had their operation, but that's sort of a ballpark figure.

COOPER: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks very much for coming in, and responding to the page and answering our e-mails.

GUPTA: Happy to be here. Thank you.

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