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Cardiovascular disease has been the leading cause of death in the United States and Canada for decades. Although it affects millions of people across a multitude of backgrounds, notable disparities in cardiovascular health are observed among women and become more apparent when accounting for race and socioeconomic status. Although intrinsic sex-specific physiologic differences predispose women to poorer outcomes, social determinants of health (SDOH) and biases at both the individual provider and the larger health care system levels play an equal, if not greater, role. This review examines socioeconomic disparities in women compared with men regarding cardiovascular risk factors, treatments, and outcomes. Although various at-risk subpopulations exist, we highlight the impact of SDOH in specific populations, including patients with disabilities, transgender persons, and South Asian and Indigenous populations. These groups are underrepresented in studies and experience poorer health outcomes owing to structural barriers to care. These findings emphasise the significance of understanding the interplay of different socioeconomic factors and how their stacking can negatively affect women's cardiovascular health. To address these disparities, we propose a multipronged approach to augment culturally sensitive and patient-centred care. This includes increased cardiovascular workforce diversity, inclusion of underrepresented populations into analyses of cardiovascular metrics, and greater utilisation of technology and telemedicine to improve access to health care. Achieving this goal will necessitate active participation from patients, health care administrators, physicians, and policy makers, and is imperative in closing the cardiovascular health gap for women over the coming decades., (Copyright © 2024 Canadian Cardiovascular Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pericardiocentesis is undertaken in patients with cancer for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. However, there are limited data on the frequency, characteristics and mortality of patients with different cancers undergoing pericardiocentesis., Methods: All hospitalisations of adult cancer patients (≥18 years) in the US National Inpatient Sample between January 2004 and December 2017 were included. The cohort was stratified by discharge code of pericardiocentesis and cancer, using the International Classification of Diseases. The prevalence of pericardiocentesis, patient characteristics, cancer types and in-hospital all-cause mortality were analysed between cancer patients undergoing pericardiocentesis versus not., Results: A total of 19,773,597 weighted cancer discharges were analysed, out of which 18,847 (0.1%) underwent pericardiocentesis. The most common cancer types amongst the patients receiving pericardiocentesis were lung (51.3%), haematological (15.9%), breast (5.4%), mediastinum/heart (3.2%), gastroesophageal (2.2%) and female genital cancer (1.8%), whilst 'other' cancer types were present in 20.2% patients. Patients undergoing pericardiocentesis had significantly higher mortality (15.6% vs. 4.2%, p < 0.001) compared to their counterparts. The presence of metastatic disease (aOR 2.67 95% CI 1.79-3.97), weight loss (aOR 1.48 95% CI 1.33-1.65) and coagulopathy (aOR 3.22 95% CI 1.63-6.37) were each independently associated with higher mortality in patients who underwent pericardiocentesis., Conclusion: Pericardiocentesis is an infrequent procedure in cancer patients and is most commonly performed in patients with lung, haematological and breast cancer. Cancer patients undergoing pericardiocentesis have increased mortality, irrespective of the underlying cancer type., (© 2022 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background Women continue to be underrepresented in cardiology and even more so in leadership positions. We evaluated the trends and gender differences in the guideline writing groups of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA), Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS), and European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines from 2006 to 2020. Methods and Results We extracted all guidelines authors from 2006 to 2020, assessed their gender from publicly available profiles, and compared differences based on subspecialties and specific societies. Stratified and trend analyses were performed using χ 2 and average annual percentage change/average 5 year percentage change. A total of 80 ACC/AHA (1288 authors [28% women]), 64 CCS (988 authors [26% women]), and 59 ESC (1157 authors [16% women]) guidelines were analyzed. A significant increase in inclusion of women was seen in ACC/AHA (12.6% [2006] to 42.6% [2020]; average annual percentage change, 6.6% [2.3% to 11.1%]; P =0.005) and ESC (7.1% [2006] to 25.8% [2020]; average annual percentage change, 6.6% [0.2% to 13.5%]; P =0.04), but the trend remained similar in CCS (20.6% [2006] to 36.3% [2020]; average annual percentage change, -0.1% (-3.7% to 3.5%); P =0.94), guideline authors. More women were coauthors in the ACC/AHA and ESC guidelines when women were chairs of guidelines. There was a persistent disparity of women among guideline authors for general cardiology and all subspecialties, except for pediatric cardiology and heart failure guidelines. The appointment of women authors as a chair was significantly low in all societies (22.4% [ACC/AHA], 16.9% [CCS], and 7.2% [ESC]; P =0.008). Conclusions There is a significant disparity in the inclusion of women on all national guideline committees, in addition to serving as a chair of cardiology guidelines. Further advocacy is required to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in our cardiology guidelines globally.