Introduction: Female hormones have well known influence on the cardiovascular system. They participate in the regulation of vascular resistance, sensitivity of adrenergic receptors, plasma volume, skin blood flow and others. In the perimenopausal period estrogen and progesterone levels begin to fall. The aim of this study was to evaluate if this changes modify the clinical pattern of vasovagal syncope.
Methods: The study has enrolled 500 consecutive women,with the history of syncope of probably vasovagal etiology. On the basis of the medical history age of first syncope, number of syncope and comorbidity have been analized. All women underwent the tilt test according to the recommendation of the ESC. Then we examined whether there were some differences in the frequency of positive or negative results of HUTT or the type of VVS for the comparison groups.
Results: Age at first syncope was higher in postmenopausal women. There were no significant differences in the incidence of syncope and presyncope episodes regarding medical history. In postmenopausal women comorbidities were more often. The difference of the incidence of positive and negative HUTT’s results between comparison groups didn’t have statistical significance. The occurrence of the vasodepressive response was significantly more frequent in postmenopausal women.
Conclusions: This observation may be related to the postulated different mechanism of the vasovagal syncope in patients over fifty, which is used to be called a vasovagal disease and is related to the changes in autonomic nervous system.