Women with heart failure experience better overall survival but higher morbidity compared to men, and exhibit sex-specific etiologies and responses to therapies despite being underrepresented in trials.
This review highlights the critical need to recognize and address sex-specific differences in the pathophysiology, etiology, and outcomes of cardiomyopathies to improve care for women.
Heart failure affects over 2.6 million people in the United States. While women have better overall survival rates, they also suffer from higher morbidity as shown by higher rates of hospitalization and worse quality of life. Several anatomical differences in women's hearts affect both systolic and diastolic cardiac physiology. Despite these findings, women are significantly underrepresented in clinical trials, necessitating extrapolation of data from males. Because women have sex-specific etiologies of heart failure and unique manifestations in genetic-related cardiomyopathies, meaningful sex-related differences affect heart failure outcomes as well as access to and outcomes in advanced heart failure therapies in women. This review explores these gender-specific differences and potential solutions to balance care between women and men.
Cindy M. Martin (Mon,) conducted a review in Heart failure and cardiomyopathies. Women with heart failure experience better overall survival but higher morbidity compared to men, and exhibit sex-specific etiologies and responses to therapies despite being underrepresented in trials.
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