Gender differences in cardiac hypertrophic remodeling

Abstract

Cardiac remodeling is a complex process that occurs in response to different types of cardiac injury such as ischemia and hypertension, and that involves cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, vascular smooth muscle cells, vascular endothelial cells, and inflammatory cells. The end result is cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, fibrosis, inflammation, vascular, and electrophysiological remodeling. This paper reviews a large number of studies on the influence of gender on pathological cardiac remodeling and shows how sex differences result in different clinical outcomes and therapeutic responses, with males which generally develop greater cardiac remodeling responses than females. Although estrogens appear to have an important role in attenuating adverse cardiac remodeling, the mechanisms through which gender modulates myocardial remodeling remain to be identified.