While hospitalization for heart attacks has gone down generally over time, there is an increase in hospitalizations for myocardial infarction (MI) for women under fifty-six. According to a report, the rate of mortality within 30 days of hospital discharge declined by about 28%, in both men and women. However, women in all age groups under 75 had a higher rate of death compared with men and the gap was maintained throughout the study period.
This is according to a study done in British Colombia. In fact, the hospitalization went up by 1.7% per year from 2000 through 2009 according to Karin Humphries of the University of British Colombia in Vancouver and her colleagues. The report also stated that younger women had a greater risk of dying within 30 days of discharge from hospital and this trend persisted throughout the trial. This is in contrast with statistics regarding men.
The information was reported in the Journal of Women’s Health.
“These findings highlight the need to intensify strategies to reduce the incidence of acute MI and improve outcomes after acute MI in younger women,” the authors wrote.
In order to study the rate of hospitalization ad any changes regarding women and MIs (acute) among young adults Humphries and her colleagues examined data for 70,628 acute MI admissions in 66,923 unique patients 20 and older that occurred from 2000 through 2009 in British Columbia; 17.1% of the patients were 55 and younger, according to the Report.
Sex differences in comorbidities, clinical characteristics, and cardiac care post-acute MI have been hypothesized and examined in different studies,” the authors said “However, even after adjustment for these sex differences, younger women continue to have greater odds of early mortality, and therefore the conventional cardiac risk factors and comorbidities do not explain this sex gap, particularly among STEMI patients.”
There was a reported decline in hospitalizations for MIs generally. However, the authors suggested that “the increase in acute MI hospitalization rates among younger women in the most recent years could be due to the increased knowledge of acute MI risk and better awareness about early signs and symptoms of acute MI by both female patients and their healthcare providers,” they reported.
“This decline has been mainly attributed to improvements in primary prevention strategies such as cardiac risk factor reduction programs and campaigns, which also mainly focus on older patient populations, as well as advances in medical therapy and cardiac procedures,” they said.
Age was still identified as a major factor with the rate of hospitalization for young men remaining unchanged while that for women went up. The authors posited that this increased rate in hospitalization was likely due to worsening cardiovascular risk profiles including increasing rates of Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases like obesity, hypertension and diabetes along with smoking.
In addition, they wrote, “emerging research suggests nontraditional cardiac risk factors, like depression and health status, could play a role in women’s poor outcomes following an acute MI.”
The researchers acknowledged that their study was limited by the use of administrative data. Thus, the reasons behind the increased death risk in women remain unclear.
