Myocardial Infarction in Women

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in the United States regardless of gender. Women infrequently present with myocardial infarction as the initial presentation of coronary heart disease and have unrecognized infarctions more frequently than men. Myocardial infarction in women has a similar clinical presentation as in men, with the exception of an increased incidence of non-Q wave myocardial infarctions. Complications of acute infarction in women are probably similar although the majority of data has been drawn from studies involving predominantly men. Women do however experience more strokes and have less postinfarction pericarditis than their male counterparts. Left ventricular function remains the key prognostic determinant in both sexes. Recurrent infarction is increased in women with resultant elevated mortality rates. However, complex ventricular ectopy following myocardial infarction is not predictive of cardiovascular mortality in women. Early and late survival is decreased in women, an effect probably related to the increase in mean age of women as compared with men. Overall, gender distinctions are not usually made in the majority of studies involving myocardial infarction. As epidemiologic, pathophysiologic and clinical factors may be different regarding heart disease in women, further research in this important area is warranted.

Anxiety after Acute Myocardial Infarction and In-Hospital Complications

“…Overall findings of the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the sample in this study demonstrate that this sample was similar to that of other published studies (Dittrich, Gilpin, Nicod, 1988;Greenland, 1991;Hamilton & Seidman, 1993;Hendel, 1990;Kannel & Abbott, 1987;Maynard, 1991;Moser & Dracup, 1996). Thus we can conclude that no obvious bias was introduced in our sampling.…”

“…Development of complications is largely responsible for the 10 15% mortality rate in the early stage of AMI (Shah et al, 1994;Swan, 1991). Left ventricular dysfunction (Hendel, 1990), atrial fibrillation (Henning, 1975;Kannel & Abbott, 1987), supraventricular tachycardia (Henning, 1975), left bundle branch block (Henning, 1975), atrioventricular block (Tofler et al, 1987), recurrent ischemia, and reinfarction are common complications associated with in-hospital death.…”

An International Perspective on Gender Differences in Anxiety Early After Acute Myocardial Infarction

“…When women present with AMI, they typically are different than men in a number of characteristics including age, marital status, education level, income, and presence of comorbidities (30,(33)(34)(35). Investigators have suggested that these differences may explain gender differences in anxiety after AMI.…”

Women's experience of myocardial infarction

“… 3,4 Previous studies have concluded that there is no strong basis for the assumption that data derived from studies on men with heart disease can be extrapolated to women. 5,6 …”