Commenting on the paper from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Association of age and sex with myocardial infarction symptom presentation and in-hospital mortality, Dr Kevin Fox, RCP joint specialty committee for cardiology, said:
Although heart attack survival is improving overall, doctors, health care professionals and the public need to be aware and vigilant that women can have a heart attack without the typical chest pain that we all think of as the main symptom.
- Overall the number of heart attacks and the number of heart attack deaths are falling
- Heart attacks are less common in women in general compared to men and in particular in younger women. However, when young women do have a heart attack the outcomes are not good
- This paper has shown that women, and in particular women 55 or younger, often do not have the typical presenting symptom of chest pain compared to men when they have a heart attack
- Visit the JAMA website to access the full paper