13th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 1998

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-240

Are women with cardiovascular disease discriminated concerning treatment?

Andrea Podczeck, Konrad K. Steinbach.
3rd Medical Department/Cardiology and Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Arrhythmia Research Wilhelminenspital, Vienna, Austria

Abstract

There is controversy whether diagnostic as well as therapeutical procedures in cardiology differ between male and female patients.

We carried out two studies analysing if women with acute ischemic syndrome are discriminated concerning quality of treatment as the percentage of thrombolytic therapy is significantly higher in male than in female patients. We draw special attention to the prehospital time as to the time of onset of symptoms and to the age of the patients concluding that there was no difference between male and female patients analysing these different aspects except for the fact that female patients were significantly older than male patients.

In a second study we analysed whether women with brady-arrhythmias are discriminated concerning the quality of pacing analysing the data of the Austrian Pacemaker Database since 1980. It is concluded that women with sick sinus syndrome as well as AV block are generally discriminated with respect to pacing mode, a fact that does not change over a long time period.

Key Words

Cardiac arrhythmias - gender differences
diagnostic/therapeutic procedures, acute ischemic syndrome, bradyarrhythmias, Austrian Pacemaker Database, quality of treatment, epidemiology, Yentl syndrome, sinus sick syndrome, AV block, selection of pacing mode, gender discrimination of management, thrombolytic therapy, TAMI trial, OA