Women And Vascular Diseases: Specific Characteristics

Men have a higher prevalence in most vascular diseases and women are under-represented in the mayority of the trials. Therefore, a vast mayority of clinical decisions based on these, might not be suitable for women.A review of current recommendations and the literature is presented to help to identify gender differences for patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms, carotid artery disease, and peripheral arterial disease. Most of them emphasize that women are older than men and cardiovascular risk factors are under-treated in comparison to men.The evidence suggests that women are at higher risk of aneurysm rupture when compared with men and that, when rupture occurs, it does so at smaller diameters with higher morbidity and mortality, whether by open or endovascular repair.For carotid disease, it has been suggested that carotid plaques in women tend to be more stable, which may result in surgery not being as effective as in mates, and should be more restrictive when operating asymptomatic or symptomatic women with moderate stenosis (5069%).Finally, regarding tower limb revascularization procedures, there is not enough evidence to show differences between sexes in patency, limb salvage rate, perioperative mortality, or longterm survival. (C) 2015 SEACV. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved.