'Failure to rescue': Study suggests why women fare worse than men after cardiovascular surgery

They call it “failure to rescue,” which means a surgical patient died from complications whose dire effects might have been averted if recognized and treated. New research suggests that’s why women are less likely to survive high-risk cardiovascular surgery than men.

Female patients who underwent four common but serious procedures —  abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, coronary artery bypass surgery, or atrial or mitral valve replacements — later developed complications at the same rate as men. But the study found these women were more likely to die within 30 days than men with the same serious post-op problems. 

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