Korea begins 1st major survey on gender-specific heart medicine

The fact that men and women respond differently to the same drugs due to biological and social differences is gaining renewed attention.

Against this backdrop, the Women's Heart Disease Research Working Group under the Korean Society of Cardiology has launched a “Gender Difference Medicine Awareness Survey” targeting medical students nationwide.

This survey, which has been conducted online since last Tuesday, is considered highly significant because it aims to gauge future medical professionals' awareness of disease patterns and gender-based differences in drug response, according to the working group.

Numerous cases have confirmed differences in drug response. For example, a sedative introduced in the 1950s caused severe birth defects in newborns when taken by pregnant women, prompting its market withdrawal. Additionally, some tranquilizers have been reported to cause higher blood concentrations and longer retention in women at the same dosage, raising accident risk.

Despite this, medical research has been male-centric, leading to a persistent lack of sufficient data on women.

Although the U.S. implemented a policy in 1993 to withhold national research funding for studies excluding women, the reality that men still dominate basic and clinical research internationally has not significantly changed. All this explains why the Women's Heart Disease Research Working Group has raised the need to assess awareness levels within domestic medical education settings, group members said.

“Gender-specific medicine is not a special field for one gender, but a principle for accurate diagnosis and treatment for all patients,” said Dr. Shin Mi-seung, president of the Women's Heart Disease Research Working Group and professor of cardiology at Gachon University College of Medicine. “Understanding how medical students perceive gender-specific medicine is key to determining the quality of future healthcare.”

Shin emphasized that this survey marks the first large-scale data collection attempt of its kind in Korea.

Since the 2011 launch of the “Clinical Characteristics of Female Patients Presenting with Chest Pain (KoROSE Study),” the group has published approximately 30 papers in international academic journals and has identified the unique clinical manifestations and risk factors of heart disease in women. Furthermore, the group has expanded its studies to include male data and has analyzed clinical differences by gender from multiple angles.

The group also engages in educational activities. After publishing Korea's first textbook on “Women's Heart Disease” in 2020, it continued its specialized academic publications with the 2025 release of “Ischemic Heart Disease in Women: Coronary Physiology and the Latest Diagnosis and Treatment.” Building on this research and educational foundation, the group plans to expand its efforts to include awareness surveys on sex-differential medicine targeting all healthcare professionals and, further, the general public.

“Gender-specific medicine is not ‘special medicine.’ It is ‘more precise medicine,’” Professor Shin said. “When healthcare considers gender characteristics, patient-tailored treatment will become more sophisticated.”