ESC call to action on substandard CV care in women
MARCH 7, 2011 |Sophia Antipolis, France-The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) is using the occasion ofInternational Women's Day to call for action to reduce gender disparities that mean that women currently receive second-rate cardiovascular care [1].
"The problem is that despite female gender being associated with worse CV outcomes, there are still major misconceptions among both health professionals and the public that cardiovascular disease isn't as serious in women as in men," says Dr Marco Stramba Badiale (IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy), an ESC spokesperson on women's issues, in a statement.
Recent statistics illustrating the problem include WHO data showing that CVD accounts for 55% of deaths in women compared with 43% of deaths in men and US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) figures, which indicate that over the past two decades, the prevalence of MI has increased in women aged 35 to 54 while declining in men of the same age, says the ESC. And not only are females receiving substandard treatment, they are also underrepresented in clinical trials, says the society, which is calling upon the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to make the fair representation of women in trials a requirement for the licensing of all pharmaceutical agents.
The European Heart Journal is publishing a special issue exploring CV issues facing women, including two papers now published online./.../
No comments:
Post a Comment