SINGAPORE — To tackle the rising number of deaths from heart disease in Singapore, the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) on Wednesday (Sept 21) launched the Women’s Heart Clinic, which will offer end-to-end services tailored to the specific needs of women, from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.

“We wanted to cater to the biological, physiological and psychological needs of our women patients which are different from men. Women are more likely to ignore symptoms, inaccurately assess their own personal risks of heart disease and delay seeking medical treatment,” said Associate Professor Carolyn Lam, Senior Consultant, Department of Cardiology, NHCS.

According to the Singapore Heart Foundation, heart disease and stroke is the world’s No 1 killer of women, claiming the lives of more women each year than any other disease. In Singapore, one-in-three women dies from heart disease and stroke.

The condition is deadlier in women than it is in men as it often is undiagnosed or under-treated, studies by the World Health Organisation and the New England Journal of Medicine have shown. Women exhibit different symptoms that may not be typically associate with an episode, including indigestion, heartburn or pain in the back, neck or jaw.

The profile of female patients is also different, with women about being a decade older than men when they suffer heart attacks. They are also likely to be more frail and suffer from other health problems.

One in two Asian women patients who suffered from a heart attack have diabetes, and a study led by NHCS also found that diabetic women are more at risk of dying from heart attacks than diabetic men of a similar age. 
Women also generally have smaller hearts than men, so they release smaller amounts of troponin, a protein that is considered the preferred biomarker to identify and predict heart attacks, from the damaged heart muscle when a heart attack occurs.

At the launch, healthcare company Abbott presented a S$20,000 educational grant to the clinic. Abbott is working with NHCS on clinical studies to determine the benefits of using the High Sensitive Troponin-I test.

According to Associate Professor Lam, the High Sensitive Troponin-I test “has gender-specific thresholds” that have the potential to “detect previously missed signs of heart attacks among women”.