Heart failure is more deadly in women for this reason



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UNITED STATES.

Women who experience cardiac arrest outside the hospital setting have less likely receive resuscitation of passers-by, according to a new research published in the "European Heart Journal". The researchers, led by cardiologist Hanno Tan of the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), discovered that men and women they have not received equal treatment when they suffered a cardiac arrest in the community.

An important factor in this regard was that people did not recognize that women who had suffered a collapse had cardiac arrest, delaying the call for emergency services and resuscitation. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart enters an irregular rhythm and then stops beating, which differs from heart attack (or myocardial infarction).

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Dr. Tan explains, "We found that the worst outcome for women is due in large part to the fact that women were about half as likely to suffer at a rate sensitive to treatment as men."

The likely treatment rhythm is the heart rate recorded when a person in cardiac arrest is connected to an electrocardiogram; It's very fast (often over 300 beats per minute) and chaotic. This fast and irregular pace prevents the heart from beating in a coordinated way, so that there is no effective pumping function and the blood can no longer flow into the body and into the heart, causing cardiac arrest. Death occurs in minutes, unless the heart can receive normal electrical shock by means of an electric current from a defibrillator. If this does not happen, the likely rate of treatment dissolves into a "flat line", indicating the lack of electrical activity of the heart.

At this point, it is too late for defibrillation to work and only thoracic compression remains to try to restore blood circulation so that the heart regains its electrical and mechanical activity. The ability to recognize and treat cardiac arrest in minutes is therefore crucial to treat patients when their initial rhythm can be treated and before their heart stops.

Tan and his team analyzed data from all resuscitation attempts made by emergency services between 2006 and 2012 in a province in the Netherlands. They identified 5,717 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests treated during this period, of which 28% were in women.

They found that women were less likely than men to undergo resuscitation attempt on the part of a passerby (68% vs. 73%), even when a person was present to attend the clinic. collapse (69% compared to 74%). Survival between the time of cardiac arrest and admission to hospital was lower among women (34% versus 37%) and women were less likely to survive after leaving the hospital. Hospital (37% versus 55%).

In general, the chances of survival for women leaving the hospital are about half that of men (12.5% ​​versus 20%). Researchers believe that this is largely due to the low initial rate of women (33% vs. 52%) and found several reasons for this difference.

Even when we adjusted our results to take into account pre-existing conditions and factors related to the way in which the professionals provided resuscitation, for example, the time required for the arrival of the ambulance or the time of Defibrillation after cardiac arrest, we found that women were half as likely as men to have a reversible rhythm, "says Tan.

This suggests that the lower proportion of women with a reversible rhythm is not completely explained by the fact that they are more likely to suffer from pre-existing conditions or by different resuscitation factors. Other factors, not yet discovered, also play a role. However, when we only observed the victims of cardiac arrest whose rate was reversible, we found that there was no difference in the overall survival rate between men and women, "he said. declared.

DIFFERENCES ALSO IN HOSPITAL TREATMENT

The researchers also found differences in the treatment of women in the hospital. They were less likely to be diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction and less likely to undergo coronary angiography or percutaneous coronary intervention.

According to scientists, one of the possible reasons why fewer women have a sensitive pace of treatment when they go to emergency services may be because fewer women than men tend to have cardiac arrest when other people monitor them: for demographic reasons, there are older women who live alone than men, and because the symptoms of a heart attack – one of the most common causes cardiac arrest – may not be recognized as quickly in women.

People may be less aware that cardiac arrest can occur as often in women as in men, and women themselves may not recognize the urgency of their symptoms, Tan said. . Women may experience impending heart attack symptoms that are less easy to interpret, such as fatigue, fainting, vomiting, and neck or jaw pain, while men are more likely to have typical complaints, such as chest pain. . "

Researchers call for a series of measures to address the issue of survival differences between men and women, ranging from public awareness campaigns on heart attacks and cardiac arrest among women to the reorganization of health care systems to provide more resuscitation. fast for women, especially those who live alone, for example, through portable devices that control heart rate and circulation and can send alerts to surveillance systems.

Since cardiac arrests occur more frequently outside the hospital in the general population, it is likely that society will be much more aware that cardiac arrest is as prevalent in women as in men, but it can have different symptoms. Given the short window available to save the patient's life, every minute of this first phase counts; Help, even if it is just a call to the emergency number, is crucial. As a result, awareness raising through public campaigns could have a significant impact on women's survival. "The treatment at the hospital also seems to be different, it's a conclusion that can be applied now and that can be easier to implement," he concludes.

Among the limitations of the study are missing data on pre-existing conditions in 27.5% of patients with heart attacks, although in both cases the missing patient data are evenly distributed among the sexes. Scientists did not have any information on the symptoms reported by patients before their heart attack, which could have affected the speed with which the witnesses can make an emergency call.

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* This content is published with the permission of Europa Press.

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