Women face greater delays for primary PCI

PARIS -- Women face greater delays than men in accessing lifesaving primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI), even in European countries participating in the Stent for Life Initiative.

The Stent for Life Initiative is driving equal access to PPCI in heart attack patients across Europe.
Women are more likely than men to die within a year of a heart attack and to develop heart failure.
Since women are often diagnosed later and may therefore not get access to reperfusion therapy in some countries, the Stent for Life Initiative is tackling these disparities through collaboration with Women in Innovations (WIN). 

"For women, the delay to PPCI treatment is longer and we are collaborating with WIN to try to optimise the therapy for women with heart attacks," said Prof Steen Kristensen (Aarhus, Denmark), Stent for Life Initiative chair.

WIN is a global group of female interventional cardiologists aimed at addressing gender disparities in cardiovascular care. It became an affiliated activity of the Stent for Life Initiative in March during the Stent for Life Forum 2012 in Prague. A partnership project aims to increase awareness of women and heart disease amongst doctors and patients in Europe. It will target countries with the greatest need for education in this area.

The mission is to improve the delivery of care and patient access to the life saving indications of PPCI, thereby reducing mortality and morbidity in patients suffering from acute coronary syndromes (ACS). The objective is to increase the use of PPCI to more than 70% of all ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients, achieving PPCI rates of more than 600 per one million inhabitants a year. To do this the aim is to offer a 24/7 PCI service at all relevant facilities to cover the country population need. There are two prongs to the initiative. First is to reduce delays in patients seeking treatment. That means calling an ambulance immediately when they have symptoms of a heart attack. The Stent for Life Initiative is supporting patient awareness campaigns called ACT NOW.SAVE A LIFE in several countries to promote what patients should do if they have heart attack symptoms.

Second is to reduce delays in the system so that patients who have a heart attack get reperfusion therapy, which means opening the vessel to the heart, as quickly as possible. Health systems need a straight line from the ambulance to the catheterisation laboratory where the clot can be removed with a catheter technique called primary angioplasty or PPCI. The Stent for Life Initiative promotes taking an electrocardiogram (ECG) in the ambulance so that patients can be diagnosed and directed to the correct part of the hospital.