Doctors warned Monday at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Vienna that successful heart surgery treatment for men may kill women.
A small study of 184 women conducted by Dr. Eva Swahn, department of cardiology, University Hospital in Linkoping, Sweden, found that women who had major heart operations like a coronary bypass were more likely than men to die.
The study was part of a larger study funded by pharmaceutical companies Sanofi-Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. Swahn consults occasionally for various pharmaceuticals and is writing a book for AstraZeneca. Although experts said no definitive conclusions can be drawn from Swahn’s study, they agreed the idea that women might need different treatment than men should be studied further.
"We have had hints in the past that women don't respond to treatment in exactly the same way as men," said Dr. Christopher Cannon, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and spokesman for the American College of Cardiology. Cannon was not connected to Swahn’s research.
The American College of Cardiology in August revised its treatment guidelines to suggest doctors should reconsider before subjecting women at low risk of heart disease to invasive procedures.
Women typically have a better chance of surviving a heart attack than men. But in Swahn's study reflected two previous Scandinavian trials that looked at hundreds of women and experts found that women had a higher death rate than men when invasive heart procedures were performed.
In Swahn's study, the women were divided into two equal groups of women that had an invasive procedure like a coronary bypass surgery or an angioplasty and another that waited until further symptoms developed.
Of the women who had an invasive procedure, eight died after one year. That compares to just one death in the other group.
"There is a big question mark over why this is happening," Swahn said. "We want there to be equality between the genders, but that doesn't mean that women and men should get the same treatment."
Source:Xinhua/agencies
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