Doctors’ ‘sexism’ leads to women missing out on treatment to avoid heart attacks

SEXISM in medicine leads to thousands of women unnecessarily suffering heart attacks, a major study has found.

Research presented at the European Society for Cardiology annual conference in Barcelona suggests that almost 12,000 women in the UK who should have been identified as being at high risk of death have been failed in the past two decades.

Previous studies have found that women suffering heart attacks are 50 per cent more likely than men to receive an incorrect initial diagnosis.

Experts say heart attacks in women are often missed, partly because doctors assume victims are more likely to be male and partly because women’s symptoms can be less obvious.

Medics from Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals and the University of Zurich tracked women for 12 years and found that in the UK, on average, 5.2 per cent per year more women who suffered heart attacks should have been classified as being at high risk of death and requiring interventional treatment. That percentage equates to 11,651 females potentially being incorrectly classified and, therefore, likely to have received the wrong treatment, researchers said.

The study, published in The Lancet, used data from 420,781 patients with non-st-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes – NSTEMI, the most common type of heart attack – from across Europe. It found men were far more likely to be identified as high-risk patients.

Dr Florian Wenzl, of the University of Zurich, the first author of the study, said it showed “established risk models which guide current patient management are less accurate in females and favour the undertreatment of female patients”.

“Using a machine-learning algorithm and the largest datasets in Europe we were able to develop a novel artificial intelligence-based risk score which accounts for sex-related differences in the baseline risk profile and improves the prediction of mortality in both sexes,” he added.

Researchers said the study illustrated the need to harness artificial intelligence to ensure patients were treated corrrectly.

Thomas F Lüscher, of Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals, said: “I hope the implementation of this novel score in treatment algorithms will refine current treatment strategies, reduce sex inequalities and eventually improve the survival of patients with heart attack – both male and female.”

Dr Sonya Babu-narayan, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist, said: “We live in a world where inequalities in heart attack care are costing women’s lives every day. Data from large numbers of people show that the odds of surviving a heart attack are stacked differently if you are a woman.

“To end this injustice requires change.

“We must tackle the persistent biases that pervade society and healthcare.”