Significant differences in achieving risk factor targets between women and men

There is a striking and statistically significant difference in how women and men are treated following a heart attack. These gender differences are reflected in the rate of risk factor control, which was lower in women, and in the rate of hospital readmission for a further heart attack, which was higher in women than in men.

The conclusions are reported today in an analysis of the SWEDEHEART registry in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.(1) This Swedish registry is one of the world's biggest ongoing statistical records in cardiac treatments and one of the few to report data on the fulfilment of secondary prevention targets and readmission rates in such a large proportion of heart attack (acute myocardial infarction, AMI) patients in a single country.(2) The present study included more than half of all patients up to 75 years of age who survived an AMI in Sweden between 2005 and 2014 and were thus eligible for secondary prevention treatment, a total of 51,620 patients examined up to 12 months post-AMI.

The findings, say the authors, indicate "substantial" potential in the secondary prevention of heart attack and control of risk factors in women, particularly in lipid (LDL cholesterol) and blood pressure control, whose target levels were both higher in women than in men.

Specifically (after statistical adjustment for patient age), lipid control (as defined by a target level of END