Caring for women’s hearts also means adapting medicine.

On the occasion of Heart Week 2026, dedicated to Women’s Heart by the Belgian Cardiological League, the H.U.B would like to highlight a reality that remains too little known: cardiovascular diseases do not always manifest in the same way in women and men. Their prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up must therefore take these differences into account.

Cardiovascular health viewed from a female perspective

Cardiovascular risk factors are partly shared by women and men. However, in women, certain factors related to hormonal and reproductive health may also influence cardiovascular risk throughout life, including contraception, pregnancy, pregnancy complications, PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), perimenopause and menopause.

Some cardiovascular events or conditions are also more common in women, such as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), Takotsubo syndrome or certain forms of ischaemia without significant obstruction of the coronary arteries (INOCA/MINOCA). Symptoms may also be less typical and sometimes mistaken for severe fatigue, digestive problems or stress, which may contribute to delayed diagnosis or even an incorrect diagnosis. 

At the H.U.B, these specific features are among the factors taken into account when assessing a patient’s cardiovascular health.

When a woman has risk factors, symptoms suggestive of cardiovascular disease or a diagnosed heart condition, her care may require the complementary expertise of several disciplines. Cardiologists, gynaecologists, endocrinologists and other specialists work together when the clinical situation requires it, in order to cross-reference information and tailor prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up to each patient.

This approach notably makes it possible to consider heart health throughout the whole life course: understanding gynaecological and obstetric history, taking hormonal status into account, identifying certain specific risk factors and integrating the various stages of reproductive life and menopause into the cardiovascular assessment.

Because personalised medicine must also be based on inclusive research

Adapting care also requires sufficiently representative scientific knowledge.

Yet women remain under-represented in many cardiovascular clinical trials. A 2024 analysis of 740 cardiovascular trials conducted since 2010 estimated that women accounted for only 38% of participants. Furthermore, results are not systematically analysed separately by sex, which may limit our ability to identify potential differences in disease presentation or treatment response.

For an academic hospital such as the H.U.B., this issue is essential. Truly personalised medicine can only be patient-oriented if the knowledge on which it is based takes the diversity of patients into account.

This means continuing to develop research that includes women, analyses data by sex where relevant and explores, among other aspects, the specific features of women’s cardiovascular health. The aim is not to create two separate forms of medicine, but to gain a better understanding of what may differ in order to provide each person with care based on the best available knowledge.

Better knowledge for better prevention and better care

Heart Week is also an opportunity to remind us that cardiovascular health concerns women at every stage of life. In Belgium, cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death among women, yet this risk is still largely underestimated.

As a long-standing partner of the Belgian Cardiological League, the H.U.B is supporting the “Women’s Heart” campaign to help raise awareness of these issues.

Because taking women’s specific characteristics into account is not medicine apart: it is essential to building medicine that is fairer, more precise and truly personalised.