Gender and Patterns of Cardiovascular Diagnoses and Year of Diagnoses in an Unlike-Sex Twin Sample in Sweden
Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for men and women. This study examined diagnoses in health records in a sample of older-unlike-sex twins in Sweden (N=249 pairs). A physician in Sweden has examined these twins’ medical records going back as far as 50 years and compiled a database with diagnoses based on ICD-10 codes and the year of diagnosis. A subsample of twinpairs was created in which both members had been diagnosed with at least one cardiovascular condition (N=140 pairs). The number of these conditions ranged from 1-8, with men having more than women (chi-square = 15.349, 7 d.f., p<.05). Analyses of the 4 most frequent conditions were conducted. We found 59 subjects with a diagnosis of myocardial infarction (45 men; 14 women), but only 4 concordant twinpairs; of those 2 brothers preceded their sister in year of diagnosis. We found 72 cases of congestive heart failure (43 men; 29 women), but only 12 concordant twinpairs; in half of those cases, the brother preceded his sister. We found 61 cases of stroke (34 men; 27 women), but only 12 concordant twinpairs; in 5 cases the brother preceded his sister. We found 181 subjects with arterial hypertension (77 men; 104 women), and 66 concordant twinpairs; in 31 of those twinpairs, the brother preceded his sister, and in 35 the sister preceded her brother. Additional pattern analyses will be presented that describe the arrays of cardiovascular co-morbidities and their year of diagnosis within twinpairs and the whole sample.
Benefits and Learning Objectives
To present pattern analyses of cardiovascular conditions in an unlike-sex twin sample