The Frankfurt doctor Lena Marie Seegers shows a model heart, you can see the back of the heart. Image: Anton Vester
After a heart attack, women have a worse chance of surviving than men. Not only because they have other symptoms, the specific risks are also not well known. A Frankfurt researcher wants to change that.
“We work on the border to death.” The cardiologist Lena Seegers, who describes her challenging discipline in this way, would like to push these boundaries – for the benefit of her patients. Because although in Germany far fewer women are affected by a heart attack than men, they die more often from it. Why is that? There are already some scientific findings on this, but also many medical theses that first have to be validated. Seegers would like to track some of them down with a study.
David Leistner, who has been the new director of cardiology at the Frankfurt University Hospital since October, brought the 33-year-old doctor from Harvard to Frankfurt because she is working on intracoronary imaging methods and female cardiology. In the United States, the doctor got to know the Women’s Heart Health Centers, which have been there for decades: heart centers especially for women. On the one hand, they serve to provide health information about risk factors and prevention options and, on the other hand, they are geared towards the treatment of cardiac patients. The chances of survival for women after a heart attack have been significantly improved in the United States.