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Why Heart Disease Kills More Women Than Breast Cancer

Posted on: Friday, 2 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

THE myth that heart disease is a men-only condition is firmly dispelled today in the British Medical Journal.

The illness, which is the leading cause of death in both sexes throughout the world, kills four times more women than breast cancer. In Europe it kills a higher percentage of women - 55% - than men.

Yet, according to a leading cardiologist, many women do not realise that coronary heart disease is the main threat to their life, their greatest fear being breast cancer. Even more worrying is how few healthcare professionals realise its significance.

Dr Ghada Mikhail, a London-based consultant cardiologist, argues in the BMJ that heart disease in women is "under-diagnosed, undertreated, and under-researched".

She says that women and men with heart disease tend to differ in their presentation of symptoms, their access to investigations and treatment, and their overall prognosis.

For example, women may have fewer common symptoms, are less likely to seek medical help, and tend to come forward late. They are also less likely to have appropriate investigations, which can delay effective treatment.

Women also continue to be under-represented in research on heart disease, making it difficult to draw conclusions on managing it.

Dr Mikhail says: "They account for less than 30% of the participants in most studies and trials in cardiology."

To remedy this, DrMikhail suggests that participants' sex should be considered in the design and analysis of cardiology studies.

Better awareness and education, earlier and more aggressive control of risk factors, and appropriate access to diagnosis and treatment are desperately needed, she said.

Last month, European researchers called for more women to be included in clinical trials for new heart drugs in an effort to find out whether their response to medicines differs from men's.

The research was welcomed by health campaigners in Scotland, which remains the heart attack capital of the UK. Men in Scotland have the highest premature death rate, with 244 per 100,000 suffering from fatal heart disease before the age of 75, compared with 146 in the south-west of England.

The British Heart Foundation says 2400 women die every week in the UK as a result of heart and circulatory disease. They say that the condition kills one in three women and that, at any given time, almost 1.2 million women are suffering from heart disease.

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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