Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender disparities in acute coronary syndrome patterns.

Background: Global evidence has emerged showing fewer Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) cases than expected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study aims to evaluate the incidence of ACS before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and analyze differences in gender distribution, and type of presentation.

Methods: This is a retrospective study of 997 patients who presented to Huntsville Hospital's catheterization lab for elective and emergency catheterization for ACS and non-ACS during a four-week period from February 26, 2020, to March 10, 2020, and from March 25, 2020, to April 8, 2020, and compared with the equivalent weeks in 2019.

Results: We report a 45.5% decrease in ACS cases presenting during the COVID-19 pandemic between March 25, 2020, to April 8, 2020 compared to equivalent weeks in 2019, with a significant drop in percentage of female patients presenting by 30.6%. Upsurge in STEMI cases and a drop in NSTEMI cases was observed during the COVID pandemic compared to 2019.

Conclusions: Patients presenting after the onset of the pandemic had elevated cardiac markers, representing higher severity and potentially presenting later in the disease course. The number of total ACS cases and percentage of females presenting to the catheterization lab before the COVID surge (February/March 2019 and 2020) almost remained stable. This comparison data provides validity that the drop in ACS case volume and females in March/April 2020 is more likely due to the pandemic and not due to improvements in overall cardiovascular health metrics. Reasons for this disparity are likely multifaceted and deserve further investigation.