Why the study?
Women with cardiac emergencies have a high risk of adverse outcomes and receive less evidence-based treatment than men despite guideline recommendations, while also presenting with conditions that predominantly or exclusively affect women.
This consensus statement highlights the need for equitable, evidence-based, and sex-specific management of cardiac emergencies in women to address current disparities in care.
Women with cardiac emergencies receive less evidence-based therapy; challenges implementation equity and extends research on sex-specific barriers.
Cardiac emergencies in women, such as acute coronary syndromes, acute heart failure, and cardiac arrest, are associated with a high risk of adverse outcomes and mortality. Although women historically have been significantly underrepresented in clinical studies of these diseases, the guideline-recommended treatment for these emergencies is generally the same for both sexes. Still, women are less likely to receive evidence-based treatment compared to men. Furthermore, specific diseases affecting predominantly or exclusively women, such as spontaneous coronary dissection, myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries, takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and peripartum cardiomyopathy, require specialized attention in terms of both diagnosis and management. In this clinical consensus statement, we summarize current knowledge on therapeutic management of these emergencies in women. Key statements and specific quality indicators are suggested to achieve equal and specific care for both sexes. Finally, we discuss several gaps in evidence and encourage further studies designed and powered with adequate attention for sex-specific analysis.
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Sambola et al. (2024) studied this question.
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