A new study has found that a heart attack is more likely to kill a woman than a man, perhaps because women are more likely to delay seeking treatment for myocardial infarction symptoms.
Compared with men, women had a significantly higher rate of intra-hospital mortality from a heart attack at 9 percent versus 4.4 percent in men, according to Guillaume Leurent, MD, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Rennes, France, and colleagues who announced the findings at the recent Acute Cardiac Care Congress meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.
Women also had significantly longer median delay between onset of heart attack symptoms and calling for medical assistance (60 versus 44 minutes). In addition, women had a significantly longer median delay between hospital admission and resumed blood flow to the heart (45 versus 40 minutes), and received significantly fewer recommended treatments at discharge.
Marsha Richardson, a clinical nurse specialist in Emergency Services at Via Christi Hospitals in Wichita says that women must be more in tune to chest pain and get access to medical assistance quickly to allow for more timely reestablishment of blood flow to the heart.
“Women may delay calling an ambulance because they still believe heart attacks are primarily a male problem,” Richardson said.
You can read more about the study here.
