Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Cardiovascular disease CVD is the leading cause of death in women, and knowledge of the clinical consequences of atherosclerosis and CVD in women has grown tremendously over the past 20 years.
Research efforts have increased and many reports on various aspects of ischaemic heart disease IHD in women have been published highlighting sex differences in pathophysiology, presentation, and treatment of IHD. Data, however, remain limited. A description of the state of the science, with recognition of the shortcomings of current data, is necessary to guide future research and move the field forward. In this report, we identify gaps in existing literature and make recommendations for future research.
Women largely share similar cardiovascular risk factors for IHD with men; however, women with suspected or confirmed IHD have less coronary atherosclerosis than men, even though they are older and have more cardiovascular risk factors than men. Coronary endothelial dysfunction and microvascular disease have been proposed as important determinants in the aetiology and prognosis of IHD in women, but research is limited on whether sex differences in these mechanisms truly exist.
Differences in the epidemiology of IHD between women and men remain largely unexplained, as we are still unable to explain why women are protected towards IHD until older age compared with men. Eventually, a better understanding of these processes and mechanisms may improve the prevention and the clinical management of IHD in women. Cardiovascular disease CVD is the leading cause of death in both women and men worldwide and a major cause of morbidity.
In many Western countries, cardiovascular mortality has declined among women since the mids, as it has in men. Indeed, when examining age-standardized death rates rather than death counts, a similar decline is noted in women and in men in the USA and many other Western countries.
