A new study, published in Deutsches Aerzteblatt International, finds that women are not at higher risk of dying from myocardial infarction in German hospitals than men.
In this study, the authors analyzed the medical data from AOK (a large general statutory health insurance company) patients who had received hospital treatment for a myocardial infarction between 2004 and 2005.
Within this period, 57,000 women and 75,000 men insured by AOK suffered from a myocardial infarction somewhere in Germany.
After allowing for the age of the patients, there was no difference in mortality between men and women.
This contradicts and disproves the hypothesis, suggested in previous studies, that a myocardial infarction is not so reliably recognized in women as in men, so that women sometimes receive inadequate care.
Mortality was only slightly increased in the small group of women under 50 years of age, in comparison with men of the same age.
The authors say that this is the first nationwide analysis of the association between gender and survival following hospital admission due to acute myocardial infarction.
