Women dying from heart attack nearly halved in two decades: Study

Good news! A study has recently found that the gender gap in death from heart attack has reduced to half over the past two decades particularly in younger women.

The findings suggested that in-hospital mortality of patients with an acute heart attack fell by at least half over the 20-year period. The differences in death rates between men and women has also reduced.

However, the gender gap in mortality has narrowed over the past 20 years which may be due to increasing use of PCI in women.

The study in over 50,000 patients found that the overall in-hospital mortality for heart attack patients was halved during the 20-year period.

"Research in the 1990s showed that younger women with acute myocardial infarction had a higher mortality than men of similar age," said Dr. Dragana Radovanovic from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

"Little is known about whether this gender difference has persisted over the years," Radovanovic added.

This study assessed changes in the in-hospital mortality of men and women with acute myocardial infarction over a 20-year period.

The study included 51,725 acute myocardial infarction patients from 83 Swiss hospitals from January 1997 through December 2016.

Among them, 59 per cent presented with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and 41 per cent with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI).

The study population was 73 per cent male (mean age 64 years) and 27 per cent female (mean age 72 years).

They found a decrease in crude in-hospital mortality from 1997 to 2016.

The results showed that in STEMI patients, in-hospital mortality significantly dropped from 9.8 per cent to 5.5 per cent in men and from 18.3 per cent to 6.9 per cent in women.

In NSTEMI patients, it fell from 7.1 per cent to 2.1 per cent in men and 11.0 per cent to 3.6 perc ent in women.

Although the in-hospital mortality continues to be higher in women than men, overall age-adjusted mortality has decreased more prominently in women compared to men, particularly those in the age category below 60 years.

The Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) increased in all patients admitted for acute heart attack. In STEMI patients, use of the PCI increased from 60 per cent to 93 per cent in men and 45 per cent to 90 per cent in women.