Apical ballooning syndrome, emotional stress and women

Abstract

In their systematic review, Gianni et al. 1 described clinical characteristics of the transient left-ventricular apical ballooning syndrome or takotsubo cardiomyopathy. They found that the disease onset is preceded by emotional stress in 26.8% and physical stress in 37.8% of cases. However, two largest and most comprehensive studies in western populations strongly have pointed toward the striking female predominance, but also toward the importance of emotional stress as a possible external triggering event, observed in 86 and 100% of cases.2,3 In addition, …