TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kutyifa, Valentina
A1  - Burch, Ashley E.
A1  - Aßmus, Birgit
A1  - Bonderman, Diana
A1  - Bianco, Nicole R.
A1  - Russo, Andrea M.
A1  - Erath, Julia W.
T1  - Sex differences in achieving guideline-recommended heart rate control among a large sample of patients at risk for sudden cardiac arrest
T2  - Heart rhythm O2
N2  - Background: Despite known clinical benefits, guideline-recommended heart rate (HR) control is not achieved for a significant proportion of patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction. The wearable cardioverter-defibrillator (WCD) provides continuous HR monitoring and alerts that could aid medication titration.
Objective: This study sought to evaluate sex differences in achieving guideline-recommended HR control during a period of WCD use.
Methods: Data from patients fitted with a WCD from 2015 to 2018 were obtained from the manufacturer’s database (ZOLL). The proportion of patients with adequate nighttime resting HR control at the beginning of use (BOU) and at the end of use (EOU) were compared by sex. Adequate HR control was defined as having a nighttime median HR <70 beats/min.
Results: A total of 21,440 women and a comparative sample of 17,328 men (median 90 [IQR 59–116] days of WCD wear) were included in the final dataset. Among patients who did not receive a shock, over half had insufficient HR control at BOU (59% of women, 53% of men). Although the proportion of patients with resting HR ≥70 beats/min improved by EOU, 43% of women and 36% of men did not achieve guideline-recommended HR control.
Conclusion: A significant proportion of women and men did not achieve adequate HR control during a period of medical therapy optimization. Compared with men, a greater proportion of women receiving WCD shocks had insufficiently controlled HR in the week preceding ventricular tachyarrhythmia/ventricular fibrillation and 43% of nonshocked women, compared with 36% of men, did not reach adequate HR control during the study period. The WCD can be utilized as a remote monitoring tool to record HR and inform adequate uptitration of beta-blockers, with particular focus on reducing the treatment gap in women.
KW  - Ventricular tachyarrhythmia
KW  - VT
KW  - VF
KW  - women
KW  - wearable-cardioverter defibrillator
KW  - sudden cardiac death
KW  - heart rate control
Y1  - 2024
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/83814
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-838147
SN  - 2666-5018
VL  - 2024
IS  - In Press, Journal Pre-proof
ER  -