Women Not Receiving Optimal Preventive Medications.

Abstract

Women continue to be suboptimally treated with medications to prevent cardiac events, according to data presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions and the European Society of Cardiology Congress. New studies show there is room for further improvement in the use of preventive medication for women. Women have long suffered higher rates of death resulting from cardiovascular causes than men, explained Annabelle Volgman, MD, medical director of the Rush University Heart Center for Women in Chicago. But a renewed emphasis on women’s cardiology research and improving the care of women with heart disease since 2000 has helped physicians close the survival gap between women and men. “Since we started paying attention, the mortality has plummeted so that in the last data from 2014, we’re seeing less mortality in women from cardiovascular disease than in men,” said Volgman. The new studies show there is room for further improvement, particularly in the use of preventive medication for women. Guidelines from the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and European heart organizations recommend using moderate- to high-dose statins to prevent primary and secondary events. European guidelines are similar. But observational studies have suggested that women are less likely to receive guideline-directed care. “Observational trials in many fields of cardiology …