Margarethe Hochleitner, MD, Claudia Gschnitzer, MD Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Innsbruck, Austria Vol.
Sex differences exist in pacemaker therapy, too.
We find a markedly reduced chance for women to receive pacemaker therapy, although in our country more women than men die a cardiac death. Medline lists no such studies. We have reason to assume that female patients are the victims of discrimination, even in pacemaker therapy. We tested our hypothesis of gender bias in pacemaker therapy by examining the data from our pacemaker center, which is located at the University Hospital in Innsbruck. It is the only such center in the Austrian state of Tyrol.