1. Characteristics of Transgender Women Referred to Women's Heart Clinic
- Author
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Rekha Mankad, Patricia A. Pellikka, Arvind K Maheshwari, Kyla Lara-Breitinger, Caroline J. Davidge-Pitts, Birgit Kantor, Todd B. Nippoldt, Fadi W. Adel, and Madeline K. Mahowald
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Referral ,business.industry ,medicine.medical_treatment ,General Medicine ,Disease ,Healthcare access ,Original Research Contribution ,Endocrinology ,Internal medicine ,RC666-701 ,Cohort ,Transgender ,Women and minorities ,Population study ,Medicine ,Anxiety ,Diseases of the circulatory (Cardiovascular) system ,Hormone therapy ,medicine.symptom ,Public aspects of medicine ,RA1-1270 ,business ,Clinical cardiology ,Depression (differential diagnoses) - Abstract
Introduction: Transgender women have been reported to have a high burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and risk factors based largely on surveys. Our aim was to describe the prevalence of CVD and associated comorbidities among a cohort of older transgender women referred to cardiology as part of their gender-affirming care. Methods: This was a retrospective, cross-sectional study of transgender women at a single institution from 2017 to 2019. Results: Fifty-two consecutive patients were included. The most common reasons for referral were cardiac risk factor management (45%) and pre-operative cardiac risk stratification prior to gender-affirming surgery (35%). The mean age was 57 ± 10 years, 87% were white, and 92% had insurance coverage. Forty-eight patients (92%) were taking gender-affirming hormone therapy; 5 had undergone breast augmentation, 4 had undergone orchiectomy, and 2 had undergone vaginoplasty. The most common comorbidities were depression and/or anxiety (63%), obesity (58%), and hyperlipidemia (54%). Excluding aldosterone antagonists, 46% were on cardiac medications; changes were recommended for 25% of patients: new prescriptions in 9, dose adjustments in 5, and discontinuations in 4. According to the pooled cohort equation, the 10-year risk of atherosclerotic CVD was 9.4 ± 7.7% when the study population was calculated as male and 5.2 ± 5.1% when calculated as female (p
- Published
- 2021