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Context: During the last 2 decades, health care professional, consumer, and payer organizations have sought to improve outcomes for patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, little has been reported about improvements in hospital short-term mortality rates or reductions in between-hospital variation in short-term mortality rates.Objective: To estimate hospital-level 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) for patients discharged with AMI.Design, Setting, and Patients: Observational study using administrative data and a validated risk model to evaluate 3,195,672 discharges in 2,755,370 patients discharged from nonfederal acute care hospitals in the United States between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 2006. Patients were 65 years or older (mean, 78 years) and had at least a 12-month history of fee-for-service enrollment prior to the index hospitalization. Patients discharged alive within 1 day of an admission not against medical advice were excluded, because it is unlikely that these patients had sustained an AMI.Main Outcome Measure: Hospital-specific 30-day all-cause RSMR.Results: At the patient level, the odds of dying within 30 days of admission if treated at a hospital 1 SD above the national average relative to that if treated at a hospital 1 SD below the national average were 1.63 (95% CI, 1.60-1.65) in 1995 and 1.56 (95% CI, 1.53-1.60) in 2006. In terms of hospital-specific RSMRs, a decrease from 18.8% in 1995 to 15.8% in 2006 was observed (odds ratio, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.75-0.77). A reduction in between-hospital heterogeneity in the RSMRs was also observed: the coefficient of variation decreased from 11.2% in 1995 to 10.8%, the interquartile range from 2.8% to 2.1%, and the between-hospital variance from 4.4% to 2.9%.Conclusion: Between 1995 and 2006, the risk-standardized hospital mortality rate for Medicare patients discharged with AMI showed a significant decrease, as did between-hospital variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Younger, but not older, women have a higher mortality than men of similar age after a myocardial infarction (MI). We sought to determine whether this relationship is true for both ST elevation MI (STEMI) and non-ST elevation MI (NSTEMI).Design: Retrospective cohort study.Setting: 1057 USA hospitals participant in the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction between 2000 and 2006.Patients: 126 172 STEMI and 235 257 NSTEMI patients.Main Outcome Measure: Hospital death.Results: For both STEMI and NSTEMI, the younger the patient's age, the greater the excess mortality risk for women compared with men, while older women fared similarly (STEMI) or better (NSTEMI) than men (p<0.0001 for the age-sex interaction). In STEMI, the unadjusted women-to-men RR was 1.68 (95% CI 1.41 to 2.01), 1.78 (1.59 to 1.99), 1.45 (1.34 to 1.57), 1.08 (1.02 to 1.14) and 1.03 (0.98 to 1.07) for age <50 years, age 50-59, age 60-69, age 70-79 and age 80-89, respectively. For NSTEMI, corresponding unadjusted RRs were 1.56 (1.31 to 1.85), 1.42 (1.27 to 1.58), 1.17 (1.09 to 1.25), 0.92 (0.88 to 0.96) and 0.86 (0.83 to 0.89). After adjusting for risk status, the excess risk for younger women compared with men decreased to approximately 15-20%, while a better survival of older NSTEMI women compared with men persisted.Conclusions: Sex-related differences in short-term mortality are age-dependent in both STEMI and NSTEMI patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior research yielded conflicting results about the magnitude of the association between body mass index (BMI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD).Study Design: Prospective cohort study.Settings& Participants: Framingham Offspring participants (n = 2,676; 52% women; mean age, 43 years) free of stage 3 CKD at baseline who participated in examination cycles 2 (1978-1981) and 7 (1998-2001).Predictor: BMI.Outcome: Stage 3 CKD (estimated glomerular filtration rate < 59 mL/min/1.73 m(2) for women and < 64 mL/min/1.73 m(2) for men).Measurements: Age-, sex-, and multivariable-adjusted (diabetes, systolic blood pressure, hypertension treatment, current smoking status, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level) logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between BMI at baseline and incident stage 3 CKD and incident dipstick proteinuria (trace or greater).Results: At baseline, 36% of the sample was overweight and 12% was obese; 7.9% (n = 212) developed stage 3 CKD during 18.5 years of follow-up. Relative to participants with normal BMI, there was no association between overweight individuals and stage 3 CKD incidence in age- and sex-adjusted models (odds ratio [OR], 1.29; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.93 to 1.81; P = 0.1) or multivariable models (OR, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.75 to 1.50; P = 0.8). Obese individuals had a 68% increased odds of developing stage 3 CKD (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.10 to 2.57; P = 0.02), which became nonsignificant in multivariable models (OR, 1.09; 95% CI, 0.69 to 1.73; P = 0.7). Similar findings were observed when BMI was modeled as a continuous variable or quartiles. Incident proteinuria occurred in 14.4%; overweight and obese individuals were at increased odds of proteinuria in multivariable models (OR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.09 to 1.88; OR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.08 to 2.26, respectively).Limitations: BMI is measure of generalized obesity and not abdominal obesity. Participants are predominantly white, and these findings may not apply to different ethnic groups.Conclusions: Obesity is associated with increased risk of developing stage 3 CKD, which was no longer significant after adjustment for known cardiovascular disease risk factors. The relationship between obesity and stage 3 CKD may be mediated through cardiovascular disease risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]