Medtronic Survey Highlights Need for Increased Awareness Among Women of Heart Valve Disease

April 11, 2024—Medtronic recently announced findings of its comprehensive survey on women’s perceptions and knowledge of risk factors, treatment patterns, and preventive care practices related to heart valve disease. The survey, conducted by Wakefield Research, was unveiled at ACC.24, the American College of Cardiology’s annual scientific session held April 6-8 in Atlanta, Georgia.

According to Medtronic, the survey sampled 1,000 women in the United States, targeting a diverse sample of women aged ≥ 50 years, with 53% between ages 50 and 65 years and 47% aged ≥ 66 years. Notably, 23.5% of respondents were Black or Hispanic, ensuring a nationally representative demographic of women in this age group in the United States.

The company advised that the survey is endorsed by Women as One, a nonprofit organization founded in 2019 by Roxana Mehran, MD, and Marie-Claude Morice, MD, to promote talent in medicine by providing unique professional opportunities to women in medicine.

“When compared to male patients, female patients often present with more advanced symptoms of heart valve disease, highlighting the importance of uncovering how we can best educate women on early warning signs and treatment options sooner,” commented Dr. Mehran in Medtronic’s press release. “These survey findings grant us the opportunity to develop better partnerships with communities experiencing the most inequities and provide a pathway to refining policies and systems that will lead to better care.”

As summarized in Medtronic’s press release, highlights of the survey findings include the following:

• There is a lack of awareness among women about the risks of aortic stenosis (AS) and cardiovascular disease. Despite the prevalence of cardiovascular disease among women, awareness is low—26% of women have not heard of any of the most common heart-related conditions, such as coronary artery disease, congenital heart disease, heart valve disease, or AS. Only 30% of women aged ≥ 50 years have heard of AS.
• Only 10% of Black women and 21% of Hispanic women have heard of AS versus 33% of White women.
• Women are not referred for diagnosis and treatment. Even women who present with risk factors are not always referred or screened. This highlights the opportunity to strengthen the referral and preventive screening pathway. In fact, 82% of women aged > 65 are living with a chronic condition that increases their risk of AS, yet the majority (68%) have never been referred to a cardiologist or taken a heart disease risk assessment.
• Women do not seek cardiovascular care because they believe their symptoms will not be taken seriously. Women experiencing heart valve disease symptoms such as fatigue and shortness of breath stated that the following would prevent them from seeking medical care:
  • Fear or anxiety about going to the doctor (more than two in five women cite this)
  • Feeling like their doctor will dismiss their symptoms (cited by 15%)
• Women are interested in treatments that have been proven effective in women. For women diagnosed with a medical condition such as heart valve disease and deciding which treatment to pursue, they look to what would work best for them based on several important factors, such as minimally invasive treatment, recovery time, and doctor recommendation.
  • When selecting the top three factors they consider, close to half (45%) included a minimally invasive procedure, highlighting the importance of solutions like TAVR.
  • The majority (75%) of women surveyed are very or extremely likely to ask their doctor about a different treatment option if they learn of one that is shown to be more effective in women than the one their doctor recommended.

The press release further noted that Medtronic, Women as One, and others are spearheading a range of initiatives, including educational campaigns and women-focused clinical trial research with policymakers and government officials to increase health equity for women with heart valve disease. More information for public awareness is available online from Medtronic at MyInteractiveASJourney.com.

Nina Goodheart, Senior Vice President and President, Structural Heart & Aortic, part of the Cardiovascular Portfolio at Medtronic, stated in the company’s press release, “In order to tackle the ever-growing challenges that female patients face in health care, we need to fully understand issues surrounding their awareness and the impact it has on their health.”

She continued, “Heart valve disease awareness deserves broader attention in the United States, especially considering many women aged ≥ 50 are at an increased risk of developing the disease. This survey shines a light on the need for increased awareness, early detection, and access to appropriate care for women.”

Goodheart added, “Driving change to address inequities in health care cannot be done alone. When it comes to heart valve disease in women, Medtronic is proud to partner with our clinical community and organizations like Women as One to identify opportunities to improve health equity outcomes.”

On April 7, the findings from a Medtronic-funded SMART trial were presented at the ACC.24 Annual Scientific Session and simultaneously published online by Howard C. Herrmann, MD, et al in The New England Journal of Medicine. According to ACC, SMART is the first trial to focus specifically on informing device selection for patients with small aortic annuli, a patient group that is primarily women and has been underrepresented in previous clinical trials for TAVR.

SMART demonstrated that patients with a small aortic annulus who underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with a supra-annular self-expanding valve (Evolut Pro/Pro+/FX, Medtronic) had similar clinical outcomes and superior valve performance at 1 year compared with patients who underwent TAVR with a balloon-expandable valve (Sapien 3/3 Ultra, Edwards Lifesciences) reported the ACC press release.