Sex, drugs, and heart failure

Heart failure is almost as common in women as men, but its characteristics vary by sex. A new review summarizes the current state of sex-sensitive issues related to heart failure drugs included in treatment guidelines, and suggests future directions for improved care.

The authors of the ESC Heart Failure review note that women are largely underrepresented in clinical trials of heart failure medications, and that evidence of medications' efficacy in women is limited.

"We have much hope that precision medicine will lead to more efficacious medications. I believe that this will in part be enabled by the conduct of randomized clinical trials that are more sex-aware," said co-author Dr. Marie-Pierre Dubé, of the Montreal Heart Institute Research Centre.