Women are twice as likely to die as men after being hospitalized for a severe heart attack, according to a new study, which suggests that improvements are needed in post heart-attack care for women.
The research, conducted by a team from institutes across the United States, found that the death rate among patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) was 10.2 per cent for women and 5.5 per cent for men.
STEMI attacks cause more damage to the heart than other types of heart attacks.
The study also found that many of the recommended post-heart attack treatments were not administered to women, or were delayed.
The study found that, compared to men, women were:
- Fourteen per cent less likely to receive Aspirin, which reduces the risk of a second heart attack and prevents blood clots.
- Ten per cent less likely to receive beta blockers, which restore regular heart rhythms.
- Twenty-five per cent less likely to receive reperfusion therapy to restore blood flow.
- Twenty-two per cent were less likely to receive angioplasty (to open blocked arteries) within 90 minutes of arriving at the hospital.
The American Heart Association recommends all of these post-heart attack treatments.
"We could not determine in this study to which extent these differences were due to physicians' failures to administer optimal therapies to women versus appropriate decision-making based on biological and other differences between men and women," Dr. Hani Jneid, lead study author and assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in a statement.
The findings are published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The American Heart Association started its Get with the Guidelines program in 2000 to improve heart attack care in hospitals.
The research team set out to determine if the initiative was successful at improving care, as well as if it reduced the gender gap in the heart attack death rate.
A decade ago, the overall death rate from heart attack was higher in women than in men.
The team was reassured by the fact that the in-hospital death rate for non-STEMI heart attack was the same for men and women.
But the findings suggest that there is still a gender gap in care, which "underscores the existing opportunities to enhance post-heart attack care in women," Jneid said.
