Gender Bias In Pneumonia? Men Die More

A University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study of nearly 2,220 pneumonia patients finds that men who come to the hospital generally are sicker than women, and have a 30 percent higher risk of dying over the next year, despite aggressive medical care. Researchers further found significant differences in immune system response to infection, leading to speculation that future pneumonia treatments could be gender-based. The University of Pittsburgh researchers evaluated data from 1,136 men and 1,047 women with symptoms of pneumonia who were treated at 28 hospital emergency departments in the United States. On average, men arrived at the emergency departments with poorer vital signs, were more likely to be smokers and had a greater variety of complicating health conditions. After hospitalization, men received timely antibiotic treatments more often than women and were twice as likely to be admitted immediately to intensive-care units. read more

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