Women take longuer to seek help when suffering a STEMI

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Historically, the prognosis of those women suffering a STelevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), has been worse compared to men. Some causal factors are presentation at later ages, atypical symptoms, lower perception of risk and less sensitivity of the health care providers. Purpose Our hypothesis is that there are still differences in the presentation of STEMI based on gender, which could be identified to guide new public campaigns in this perspective. Therefore our primary outcome is to find gender differences in symptoms and time delays in a cohort of STEMI patients, and secondary outcomes are differences in mortality and bleeding. Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis carried out in the Acute Cardiac Care Unit (ACCU) of a tertiary care hospital, where 50% of the medical staff are women. Patients hospitalized for STEMI for one year were included and a detailed caracterization of symptoms, time delays, and adverse events was recorded. Finally, the patients were classified according to gender, and differences in primary and secondary outcomes between both groups were analyzed. Results Between May/2020 and May/2021, 1056 patients were admitted to the ACCU, 33% were women. A total of 115 STEMI patients were included for the analysis, 21% were women. Basal characteristics of both groups were equivalent, except for a non significand trens towards less prevalence of peripheral arterial disease in women (0% vs. 11%; OR 0.890, IC 95% 0.828-0.957; p=0.089). Opressive chest pain was the most frequent symptom, but it was less frequent in women (75% vs. 91.4%, OR 0.284, IC 95% 0.085-0.948; p=0.033), whereas they presented more frequently with stabbing pain (13% vs. 2.4%, OR 6, IC 95% 1.073-38.35; p=0.035), and their pain was more frequently radiated towards the neck (28.6% vs. 4.9%, OR 7.7, IC 95% 1.1936-30.631; p=0.001), and associated to nausea/vomiting (45% vs. 1.3%, OR 5.809, IC 95% 1.930-17.486; p=0.001). There was a non-significant trend towards a longer time delay between pain onset and seek for help in women (185min IQR 747 vs. 60min IQR 454, p=0.098), being the other system time delays equivalent between both gender groups. Women had an increased bleeding risk, with a higher CRUSADE score (47.48 ± 22.92 vs. 28.60 ± 16.72, p=0.001) and higher incidence of bleeding events (12.55% vs. 0%, OR 11.68, IC 95% 9.82-13.29, p=0.001). There were no differences in the treatments administered or in mortality (12.5% vs. 14.3%, p=0.822). Conclusions Women suffering a STEMI more often reported stabbing chest pain, radiating to the neck, and associated to nausea/vomiting compared with men, and took longer to seek for help. These findings could help in the design of future campaigns to minimize time delays, targeting these different symptoms in female population.