Women at Risk | Itamar Medical

                
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Women At Risk

What is the #1 killer of women?

Breast cancer?

Heart disease?

Breast cancer is far more publicized as a killer of women than heart disease. It’s the disease women are most aware of and fear the most. Breast cancer affects women of all ages and levels of physical fitness, while heart disease is generally an older woman’s health issue.

Even so, 500,000 women will lose their lives to heart disease this year compared to approximately 45,000 who will succumb to breast cancer.

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Still, almost all public campaigns aimed at awareness for cardiovascular disease have been aimed at men, and, more important, most of the research to date has focused on male subjects.

As a direct result, the incidence of death from CAD has decreased for men but has remained at the same level for women. Fortunately, this gender imbalance is now being addressed. Many researchers and physicians have spearheaded efforts to understand the gender issues related to CAD and to push for research aimed at women.

Groundbreaking Study

Digital Assessment of Endothelial Function

And Ischemic Heart Disease in Women

Ischemic heart disease is the medical term for coronary artery disease (CAD). While certainly treatable, ischemic heart disease is often “silent” and causes no noticeable symptoms in many people who have it—especially women. Even with available treatment, “silent” cases often go unnoticed in women and can result in sudden death due to a heart attack or an arrhythmia, which is abnormal electrical activity in the heart.

Understanding that older women were at particular risk for ischemic heart disease, Japanese researcher, Dr. Yasushi Matsuzawa, and his colleagues wanted to see if EndoPAT testing could predict the presence of ischemic heart disease in 140 women.

In a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2010, Dr. Matsuzawa reported that when they tested 140 stable women with EndoPAT who had reported minor chest pain but no other symptoms, EndoScores were significantly impaired in those women who were later diagnosed with non-obstructive coronary artery disease and obstructive coronary artery disease.

That means women without significant chest pain who have coronary heart disease can now be identified, because the non-invasive EndoPAT test can reliably predict the presence of ischemic heart disease in these women.

With coronary artery disease the #1 cause of death in women, this important study makes clear that every woman who is 45 years of age and older should ask their doctor for the EndoPAT test.