Sex differences in acute myocardial infarction: protocol for an umbrella review.

INTRODUCTION: In recent decades, differences in the risk factors, presentations, management strategies and outcomes of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between the sexes have emerged. Several systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SMRAs) on this specific topic have been conducted, and an overall assessment of the information available on the subject is needed. The protocol details our proposed methodology for conducting an umbrella review (systematic review of SRMAs) on sex differences related to AMI treatment. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: An umbrella review will be conducted following the guidelines of the Joanna Briggs Institute. Papers published from database inception until November 25th, 2024, were searched in Ovid Medline, Embase, APA PsycInfo, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Epistemonikos and Scopus using controlled vocabulary and text words expressing sex differences AND myocardial infarction. An updated search will be conducted near the end of the umbrella review process to ensure that not recently published SMRAs are missed. No language restrictions will be applied in the database searches, but only SRMAs reported in English will be eligible for inclusion. The inclusion criteria include SMRAs reporting sex differences in outcomes related to AMI treatment among adults. All review steps will be conducted independently by two reviewers. Data will be extracted using a recommended standardised data extraction form. A critical appraisal checklist will be used to assess the risk of bias within the included SMRAs. The findings will be summarised through narrative synthesis using text and tables. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval is not required, as this review will use publicly available data. The results will be disseminated as a peer-reviewed journal article and through national/international conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO, CRD42024561159.