WASHINGTON, DC (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Nearly 1 million heart-related deaths occur each year, evenly split between men and women, but heart warning signs vary widely. Blockages in large arteries are usually discovered quickly, but blockages in small heart vessels are not. Women are much more likely to experience a small vessel disease called cardiac microvascular dysfunction and be misdiagnosed.

Selina Gore is the CEO of WomenHeart.org and, ironically, a heart patient herself. When her neck swelling and fatigue became severe, she went straight to the hospital nearly a dozen times, but she was sent home without being diagnosed.

“The conclusion of the ER document was that I was having a particularly rough day,” Gore said.

Research shows that testing and treatment differ depending on gender. Because cardiac microvascular dysfunction occurs almost exclusively in women, CMD remains undiagnosed if we only test for aortic disease, which is easy to test for.

“So it’s very simple. It takes an additional 5 to 7 minutes than a normal diagnostic cardiac catheterization,” explained Dr. Hader Hashim, an interventional cardiac specialist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

Because CMD is not a formal diagnosis, testing is often not routine. Dr. Hashim recently successfully testified before the Centers for Disease Control to change this.

“The CDC has approved this disease of the capillary microcirculation as a diagnosis as of October 1, 2023, which is now a recognized diagnosis,” Dr. Hashim said.

And that’s good news for Goret and for the 65 percent of heart patients with CMD who otherwise would never have been diagnosed or treated.

Dr. Hashim and colleagues at MedStar are compiling a registry of cardiac microvascular patient symptoms and diagnoses. This will soon become a national database, providing clinicians and researchers with further information on cardiac microvascular dysfunction.

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