diagnosis<\/a>.”<\/p>\nResearchers looked at a U.S. database of health information from 2000 to 2022. They studied more than 450,000 females (average age 41 years) with fibroids compared to nearly 2,251,000 females who had not been diagnosed with the fibroids. Over the next decade, researchers monitored for incidences of\u00a0coronary artery disease\u00a0(including\u00a0heart attack), cerebrovascular disease (stroke\u00a0and related conditions) and\u00a0peripheral artery disease.<\/p>\n
They found:<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter 10-years of follow-up, women with fibroids were at higher risk for all three major conditions (coronary artery, cerebrovascular and peripheral artery diseases).
\n\tThe risk of developing cardiovascular disease was 81% higher among those women with fibroids compared to those without.
\n\tAt 10 years, more than 5.4% of women with fibroids had experienced a cardiovascular event compared to 3% of women without fibroids.
\n\tWomen diagnosed with uterine fibroids were at increased heart disease risk across all racial and ethnic groups (white, Black, Hispanic and Asian groups).
\n\tAmong younger women, under age 40, the risk for cardiovascular disease was 251% higher (or more than 3.5 times more likely) in those with fibroids compared to those without fibroids.
<\/p>\n
“The strength of the relationship between heart disease risk and uterine fibroids was striking,” DiTosto said. “However, it’s important to note that more research is needed to confirm these findings in other populations before formal changes are made to cardiovascular risk assessment guidelines. In the meantime, these results support having thoughtful conversations between women and their providers about heart health in the context of a fibroid diagnosis.”<\/p>\n
“This study highlights yet another aspect in the unique factors that impact women in regard to the leading cause of death among them – cardiovascular disease,” said Stacey E. Rosen, M.D., FAHA, volunteer president of the American Heart Association and senior vice president of women’s health and executive director of the Katz Institute for Women’s Health of Northwell Health in New York City. “It also is an opportunity to recognize the very important role all of a woman’s health care clinicians can play in her overall health, including heart health. Because many women may use annual “well-woman” visits to their gynecologist or their general practitioner as their primary point of care, these visits offer exceptional opportunities that go beyond gynecologic health. These findings linking fibroids to heart disease support the need to discuss the bigger picture that considers ways to identify and reduce cardiovascular disease risk, even among those women who may not have any other apparent risk factors.”<\/p>\n
Among the limitations of the study, fibroids may not have been diagnosed yet in women included in the comparison group. While the researchers tried to account for possible underdiagnosis of fibroids, the limitation may have impacted the results to some extent.<\/p>\n
Study details, background and design:<\/p>\n
\n\tThe study included 2,701,062 females, average age of 41 years – 450,177 individuals with uterine fibroids matched to 2,250,885 controls without fibroids
\n\tResearchers at the University of Pennsylvania studied inpatient, outpatient and pharmacy claims from commercially insured individuals from 2000 to 2022 from Optum’s de-identified Clinformatics\u00ae Data Mart Database.
\n\tUterine fibroids were identified using ICD-9\/10, CPT, or HCPCS codes, requiring either >1 inpatient\/outpatient claim \u22651 day apart, or 1 fibroid claim preceded by transvaginal ultrasound or pelvic MRI within 30 days.
\n\tThe outcome was first-time major atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease diagnosis including coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral artery disease, ascertained using ICD-9\/10 or CPT\/HCPCS codes.
\n\tModels adjusted for sociodemographic factors (age, race\/ethnicity), cardiovascular risk factors (smoking, obesity, sleep apnea, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension), mental health conditions (depression, anxiety), reproductive\/obstetric history (parity, pregnancy complications, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), infertility), cancer, health care utilization and medication use.
<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
American Heart Association<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-term heart disease risk in women diagnosed with uterine fibroids was more than 80% higher than in women…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[6294,113894,41273,4366,5384,134,3186,2862,5457,3193,12942,111,139,69,21649,3035,5994,1518,4371,113893,70486,9050],"class_list":["post-178106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cardiovascular-disease","tag-cerebrovascular-disease","tag-coronary-artery-disease","tag-ct","tag-epidemiology","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-heart","tag-heart-disease","tag-medicine","tag-muscle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peripheral-artery-disease","tag-ph","tag-pregnancy","tag-research","tag-stroke","tag-uterine-fibroids","tag-uterus","tag-womens-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}