New heart attack definition could benefit women

A new global definition of heart attack could improve how they’re diagnosed and understood, especially for women. The Fifth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction, developed by four major cardiac organizations, replaces the previous numerical system with three categories based on the underlying cause. For women, an important development is greater recognition of spontaneous coronary artery dissection, known as SCAD, a cause of a heart attack that predominately affects women and is often underdiagnosed. Heart attacks affect almost 4% of people younger than 60 and almost 10% of those older than that.