Coronary Artery Disease in Women

Baptist Health Corbin: Coronary Artery Disease in Women

Cardiologist Pramod Reddy, MD describes coronary heart disease in women, discussing risk factors and the importance of taking a proactive approach to education, prevention, and treatment.

Coronary Artery Disease in Women Health Talks Transcript

Pramod Reddy, MD, Cardiologist

Coronary heart disease is a situation where there is an obstruction to the blood flow to the heart. This could be a partial obstruction or a complete obstruction. If there is a partial obstruction, maybe up to 70 percent obstruction, the patient can present with chest pains; if it is a complete obstruction, they present with acute heart attack, in which case they have to be treated urgently in the cath lab. Women, in general, are at as much risk of having coronary heart disease and dying from coronary heart disease, and they are being undertreated because the general feeling is that they are not at as much risk for having coronary heart disease. So, the emphasis should be on detecting the risk factors in this population, which would include mainly diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, hypertension, and positive family history. Once we’ve dealt with the coronary heart disease, then we have to treat them as aggressively as you would treat a man, not only in preventing but in treating with all of the guideline-based therapy. Population education is very important in this region, especially in southeastern Kentucky because of the very high incidence of coronary heart disease and high incidence of risk factors. So in this population, there should be an aggressive education in trying to provide lifestyle modification and modification of the risk factors.