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Heart failure therapy more effective in women than men
by Yasser Ali - February 8, 2011 - comments
Men had more chances of a heart failure owing to blocked arteries.
Heart failure therapy is treated with a device which includes a pacemaker and a defibrillator. When women with heart disease were fitted with the combination device, their chances of a heart failure were reduced by 70 percent. In contrast, men fitted with the device saw a reduction of only 35 per cent.
Dr. Arthur Moss of the University of Rochester Medical Center who conducted the study said that the “finding was unexpected, but extremely important because this is the only heart treatment that is clearly better in women than men."
Cardiac resynchronization therapy
The findings were the result of a huge Boston Scientific study that looked at MADIT-CRT, a cardiac resynchronization therapy.
The therapy involves putting a pacemaker in the heart to restore the normal rhythmic beats of the heart in people whose hearts fail to pump blood as efficiently.
The pacemaker is combined with a defibrillator to converts the unusual heart rhythms into normal heart beats.
In an earlier study of the therapy, it was revealed that patients did better when the pacemaker was combined with a defibrillator than when the defibrillator was used alone.
The study was published in the year 2009 in the 'New England Journal of Medicine.' It had also revealed that women did better on the combination therapy than men, but it was not clear why and how much the benefit stood for women compared to men.
One reason why the therapy seems to benefit women more is that women have smaller hearts and the therapy works better with smaller hearts.--Study author Dr. Arthur Moss of the University of Rochester Medical Center
The highlight of the present study was to find out exactly how much the women benefited compared to men and why.
According to Moss, the combination therapy reduced chances of not only heart failure in women but also risk of dying from any natural cause.
Women get fantastic results
Moss said that men got a good result but women got a “fantastic result." Studies about heart disease usually involve men and this is one of the few studies which considered women too.
Moss explained that women seem to be prone to different kinds of heart conditions than men. They were more prone to suffer a heart failure due to a viral infection of the heart.
Men on the other hand had more chances of a heart failure owing to blocked arteries.
He also said that one reason why the therapy seems to benefit women more is that women have smaller hearts and the therapy works better with smaller hearts.