Purroy F, et al. - As the study of sex- and age-related differences becomes increasingly relevant for optimizing post-acute clinical care of stroke patients in aging populations that already have differing mortality by gender, researchers evaluated the impact of age- and gender-specific risk profiles on in-hospital mortality. For this investigation, they developed a cohort follow-up study from 19 Spanish hospitals with 13,932 consecutive ischemic stroke patients. Within and across age groups, they univariately compared female and male patient cohorts and used multivariable logistic regression to adjust differential in-hospital mortality for confounders. Data revealed that, in women, death was more closely related to stroke than in men; it also occurred earlier. For both sexes, stroke severity measured by NIHSS was the main predictor of in-hospital mortality. Since most women's deaths were associated with stroke, it is important to improve early management, activation of stroke code, access to stroke units and/or revascularization therapies, particularly in older age groups.