Even Minor ECG Abnormalities Increase Death Risk in Women
Reported March 12, 2007
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Electrocardiogram (ECG) readings that show even minor abnormalities in seemingly healthy postmenopausal women may mean these females are at an increased risk of a heart attack or death.
Researchers from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago gathered data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Estrogen Plus Progestin trial. The study came to a halt in 2002 after results showed hormone therapy increased a woman’s risk of heart attack, stroke and breast cancer.
Researchers in the new report analyzed 14,749 postmenopausal women — 9,744 had normal ECGs; 4,095 had minor abnormalities; and 910 had major abnormalities. They found there were coronary heart disease events, such as a heart attack or death due to heart disease, in about 1 percent of the women with normal ECGs, in about 2 percent of those with minor abnormalities, and in about 4 percent of those who had major abnormalities.
Results also revealed 5 percent of women who had a normal ECG at the beginning of the study developed new ECG abnormalities during the study.
“Given the low cost, wide availability, and ease of interpretation, the ECG may be a useful tool for assisting in the prediction of future cardiovascular events in asymptomatic postmenopausal women,” write the authors. “The presence of ECG abnormalities should prompt physicians to consider further risk stratification, more intensive therapeutic interventions, or both on modifiable risk factors for primary prevention of cardiovascular events.”
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SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2007;297:978-985