Women have a higher risk of mortality than men after cardiac surgery independent of other risk factors. The reason for this may not be limited to patient-specific variables. Failure to rescue (FTR) patients from death after a postoperative complication is a nationally endorsed quality care metric. We aimed to identify whether sex disparities exist in the quality of care after cardiac surgery using FTR rates.

A retrospective analysis of 30 973 men (70.4%) and 13 033 women (29.6%) aged over 18 years undergoing coronary artery bypass graft or valve surgery in New York (2016–2019) and California (2016–2018) who experienced at least one serious postoperative complication. The primary outcome was the FTR. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify predictors of death after complication. Propensity matching was used to adjust for baseline differences between sexes and yielded 12 657 pairs.

Female patients that experienced complications were older (mean age 67.8 versus 66.7, P<0.001), more frail (median frailty score 0.1 versus 0.07, P<0.001), and had more comorbidities (median Charlson score 2.5 versus 2.3, P<0.001) than male patients. The overall FTR rate was 5.7% (2524), men were less likely to die after a complication than women (4.8% versus 8%, P<0.001). Independent predictors of FTR included female sex (relative risk [RR]: 1.46 [CI, 1.30–1.62]), area-level poverty rate >20% (RR, 1.21 [CI, 1.01–1.59]), higher frailty (RR, 2.83 [CI, 1.35–5.93]), undergoing concomitant coronary artery bypass graft and valve surgeries (RR, 1.69 [CI, 1.49–1.9]), and higher number of postoperative complications (RR, 16.28 [CI, 14–18.89]). In the propensity-matched cohorts, the FTR rate remained significantly lower among men than women (6.0% versus 8.0%, P<0.001).

Women are less likely to be rescued from death following postoperative complications, independent of socioeconomic and clinical characteristics. Further research is warranted to investigate the clinical practices contributing to this disparity in quality of care following cardiac surgery.