Women leaders in Cardiology. Contemporary profile of the WHO European region.

Aims: Women's participation is steadily growing in medical schools, but they are still not sufficiently represented in cardiology, particularly in cardiology leadership positions. We present the contemporary distribution of women leaders in cardiology departments in the World Health Organization European region. Methods and results: Between August and December 2020, we applied purposive sampling to collect data and analyse gender distribution of heads of cardiology department in university/third level hospitals in 23 countries: Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, North Macedonia, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the UK. Age, cardiology subspecialty, and number of scientific publications were recorded for a subgroup of cardiology leaders for whom data were available. A total of 849 cardiology departments were analysed. Women leaders were only 30% (254/849) and were younger than their men counterpart (♀ 52.2 ± 7.7 years old vs. ♂ 58.1 ± 7.6 years old, P = 0.00001). Most women leaders were non-interventional experts (♀ 82% vs. ♂ 46%, P < 0.00001) and had significantly fewer scientific publications than men {♀ 16 [interquartile range (IQR) 2-41] publications vs. ♂ 44 (IQR 9-175) publications, P < 0.00001}. Conclusion: Across the World Health Organization European region, there is a significant gender disparity in cardiology leadership positions. Fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace is a priority to achieve the full potential and leverage the full talents of both women and men.

Comparison of the performances of cardiac troponins, including sensitive assays, and copeptin in the diagnostic of acute myocardial infarction and long-term prognosis between women and men.

BACKGROUND: Concerns have been raised about possible gender disparities in cardiac investigations and/or outcome. This study sought to examine and compare the diagnostic and prognostic performance of selected cardiac biomarkers in women versus men. METHODS: In a prospective, multicenter cohort of patients with acute chest pain cardiac troponin T (cTnT) (fourth-generation Roche assay), high-sensitivity cTnT (hs-cTnT), and copeptin were measured at presentation. RESULTS: Of 1,247 patients, 420 were women and 827 were men. Although the rate of acute myocardial infarction was similar in women (14.5%) and men (16.6%, P = .351), women more frequently had cardiac but noncoronary causes of chest pain (17.4% vs 10.8%, P = .001) and less frequently had unstable angina (8.8% vs 16.6%, P = .002) than men. Diagnostic accuracy as quantified by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for acute myocardial infarction in women was 0.90 (95% CI 0.84-0.95) for cTnT, which was lower than the AUC for hs-cTnT alone (0.94, 95% CI [0.91-0.98]), the combination of cTnT with copeptin (0.96, 95% CI [0.94-0.98]) or the combination of hs-cTnT with copeptin (0.96, 95% CI [0.93-0.98]) (P = .008, P = .006, and P = .002, respectively). Prognostic accuracy as quantified by the AUCs for 1-year mortality was 0.69 (0.56-0.83), 0.86 (0.79-0.93), 0.87 (0.81-0.94), and 0.87 (0.80-0.94), respectively. No relevant gender differences in AUCs were observed. CONCLUSION: The diagnostic and prognostic performance of cTnT, hs-cTnT, and copeptin is as good in women as in men. High-sensitivity cTnT and the combination of cTnT and copeptin outperform cTnT alone, both in women and men.