Mortality Gap Closes Between Younger Men and Women with Acute Coronary Syndrome

In good news from data drawn from 26 hospitals across Canada, the United States and Switzerland, women younger than 55 with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) admitted to hospital between 2009 and 2013 were no more likely to die over the next year than men in the same age group.

For more than three decades, cardiovascular disease has killed more women than men in North America. Recently, significant attention has been brought to the fact that risk, symptoms, optimal treatment and other aspects of heart disease can differ between men and women, and that the medical establishment needs to both be aware of gender differences and work to eliminate disparities in outcomes.

In the new study, young women and men had similar rates of major adverse cardiac events. Though women were more likely than men to be readmitted to the hospital in the year following their cardiac event, no difference was seen between men and women in re-admissions specifically for heart disease.

The results from this study “may indicate that practices in younger ACS adults have improved,” said Louise Pilote, MD, PhD, of McGill University, who leads the project that gathered the data.

• Read an editorial on the study in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology
• Read about the 2016 Canadian Women’s Heart Health Summit