The usefulness of age and sex to predict all-cause mortality in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy: a single-center cohort study

Xiaoping Li, Wei Hua, Yijia Tang, Rong Luo, Tao He, Jie Zeng, Chi Cai, Michael Fu, Yang Chen, Rongjian Jiang

Recent studies have shown that sex and age are associated with outcomes in patients with cardiomyopathy. The purpose of this study was to determine the all-cause mortality of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) by age and sex. The patients were divided into non-elderly (age <60 years, n=811) and elderly (age ≥60 years, n=331) groups. No difference in the all-cause mortality rate was observed between elderly and non-elderly patients (27.2% vs 22.2%, log-rank χ (2)=2.604, P=0.107). Furthermore, no significant difference in mortality was observed between the male and female patients (23.3% vs 24.5%, log-rank χ (2)=0.707, P=0.400). However, subgroup analysis revealed that elderly male patients exhibited a higher mortality rate than non-elderly male patients (29.4% vs 21.3%, log-rank χ (2)=5.898, P=0.015), while no difference was observed between the elderly female patients and non-elderly female patients. In the Cox analysis, neither age nor sex was a significant independent predictor of all-cause mortality in patients with DCM. In conclusion, no significant difference in mortality between male and female patients or between the elderly and non-elderly patients was observed. Only among males was a difference in mortality observed; elderly male patients experienced greater mortality than that of non-elderly male patients. No effect of age or sex on all-cause mortality was observed in patients with DCM.