Women

MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION: WOMEN AT HIGHER RISK?

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is performing health surveys on a regular basis. In 2009, a total of about 25,000 people living in Germany and being 18 years or older were interviewed over the phone.

Extrapolating the occurrence as seen in the random samples results in a total of 2.34 million women and 3.16 million men being affected by a coronary artery disease.

At First Glance – Mortality with Cardiovascular Diseases Higher in Women

From current cause of death statistics it can be taken that in 2010 a total of 203,000 women and 149,000 men have died from cardiovascular diseases. Among these, 26,132 women and 32,975 men died from myocardial infarction (MI). Considering that only about one third of all MI affect women, this would suggest that the mortality of women with MI is higher. However, this is ignoring that on average women suffer a MI 8 years later than men.

Age Standardization Provides Clarity

In the general public based MONICA/KORA myocardial infarction registry (2001-2003) no mortality variations from MI were found between women and men when considering the age difference between the two sexes in a mathematical manner: The age-standardized mortality of women was 39.4%, the mortality of men 39.6%. Even the absolute mortality rates, 41.7 % for women and 40.8% for men, were almost identical.