Thousands Of Well-dressed Women Are Dying From Heart Attacks And Strokes Because GPs Assume They Are Healthy

• By SOPHIE BORLAND HEALTH REPORTER; www.dailymail.co.uk

Thousands of women are dying from heart attacks and suffering strokes because doctors assume they are healthy based on how they look.

Women with a common heart condition are half as likely as men to be given vital medication that prevents the blood clots which trigger heart attacks and strokes.

Researchers believe GPs and cardiologists may neglect to prescribe medication to women who might be at risk because they assume they are in good health just by their appearance.

They may well be wearing make-up or clothes that flatter their body shape which disguises their poor health, the researchers suggested.

Academics say doctors are also failing to use vital international guidelines which estimate a patient’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke based on their age, family history, weight and certain other considerations.

French researchers looked at 14,274 patients with atrial fibrillation – a condition which affects 1 in 100 Britons whereby the heart beats irregularly and abnormally fast.

 

Although it was carried out in France, the academics say the same trends would be found in Britain as the habits of GPs

and cardiologists are very similar.

The study found that women under 75 with atrial fibrillation were 56 per cent less likely than men of the same age to be given anticoagulant pills that prevent blood clots.

And women over 75 were 30 per cent less likely to be prescribed the drugs than men of this age.

Guidelines state that 90 per cent of all patients with the condition should be prescribed the drugs if doctors are treating them properly.

But the researchers found that fewer than 50 per cent of women were offered them.

Dr Pierre Sabouret, of the Heart Institute at Pitie Salpetriere Hospital in Paris said: ‘In my opinion GPs and cardiologists are not implementing the proper guidelines. They look at women and just assume they are healthy.’

He added that women often wear make-up and flattering clothing that disguises poor health.

Speaking at the European Society of Cardiology conference in Amsterdam, he said GPs and cardiologists were failing to refer to international guidance called the ‘CHA2DS2-VASc’ score, which estimates the risk of patients with this condition suffering a heart attack or stroke.

The score takes into account their weight, age, family history of heart disease and other factors such as whether they smoke and from this, doctors know which medicines to prescribe.

But Dr Sabouret said rather than refer to these guidelines, doctors were relying on their own assumptions.

‘You cannot really blame the GPs they have a very difficult job and must understand so many guidelines.

‘But there needs to be much better relationships between cardiologists – the specialists – and the GP. ‘

Dr Sabouret pointed out that in Britain – as well as in other European countries – the death rate amongst women from strokes is high.

They are one and a half times more likely to die from strokes than men, which may partly because they are not properly treated.

Professor Helmut Purerfellner, a cardiologist at the Elisabethinen Hospital in Linz, Austria said: ‘In many nations throughout Europe women are less treated with anticoagulants.’

He added that 90 per cent of those with atrial fibrillation should be on the drugs if the guidelines were properly used.