Abstract
More women than men die of cardiovascular disease (CVD) each year in every major developed country and most emerging economies. Nonetheless, CVD has often been considered as men’s disease due to the higher rates of coronary artery disease (CAD) of men at younger age. This has led to the underestimation of the impact of CVD morbidity and mortality in women. In addition, the underrepresentation of women in clinical diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic studies further established the image of CVD being a male’s disease. Consequently, diagnostic tests for CVD and its treatment are predominantly based on observations in men. This limits their diagnostic and treatment accuracy in women. Improved insight in sex-specific features in the pathogenesis of CVD is warranted, especially since the aging of the population will further increase CVD mortality and morbidity in women. There is accumulating demographic and scientific evidence that sex differences exist in pathology and incidence of CAD and heart failure (HF) that, for this reason, will be touched upon in this chapter.
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Abbreviations
- Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA):
-
Circumsribed dilatation of the abdominal aorta exceeding the diameter of the adjacent healthy segment by more than 50 percent
- AAA:
-
Abdominal aortic aneurysms
- CAD:
-
Coronary artery disease
- CAS:
-
Coronary artery stenosis
- CVD:
-
Cardiovascular disease
- HF:
-
Heart failure
- HFpEF:
-
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction in patients with diastolic dysfunction associated with multiple causes including hyperthrophy and fibrotic degeneration
- HFrEF:
-
Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction associated with multiple diseases of the myocardium and of the valvular apparatus
Further Reading
Mieszczanska HZ, Velarde GP (eds), Management of cardiovascular disease in women
NHLBI, The healthy heart handbook for women
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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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den Ruijter, H.M., Pasterkamp, G. (2015). Gender and Cardiovascular Disease. In: Lanzer, P. (eds) PanVascular Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37078-6_244
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37078-6_244
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Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37077-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37078-6
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