Gender-based Disparity in Performing Aortic Valve Surgery in the United State Before Availability of Percutaneous Valve Implantation.

Background: Aortic valve surgery has been performed increasingly in high-risk patients. The goal of this study was to evaluate this trend based on gender in the United States before the availability of percutaneous aortic valve replacement.

Method: The Nationwide Inpatient Sample database was utilized to calculate the age-adjusted utilization rate for aortic valve surgery from 1988 to 2011 in the United States using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision coding for aortic valve surgery.

Results: A total population of 258,506 patients who underwent aortic valve between 1988 and 2011 were available for our study over the age of 20. We found that the age-adjusted rate of aortic valve surgery gradually increased from 1988 until 2009 and stabilized thereafter with a persistently higher rate for men. For men, age-adjusted rate in 1988 was 13.3 per 100,000 versus 27.0 in year in the year 2011 per 100,000. For women, the age-adjusted rate in 1988 was 6.07 per 100,000 versus 11.4 in year 2011 per 100,000.

Conclusions: Aortic valve surgery utilization has stabilized in recent years in both genders in the United States. However, this rate has been persistently more than double in men. The cause of this higher utilization in males needs further investigation.