Women Short Changed on Heart Care
Reported November 14, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Women are receiving the short end of the stick when it comes to heart treatment, report investigators who looked at outcomes of more than 4,800 women and 7,700 men with acute coronary syndromes (ACS).
The problem? Researches say women arent as likely as men to be sent for diagnostic tests when they go to the doctor complaining of heart problems.
The authors explain ACS covers a range of heart problems, including chest pain, or angina, and certain kinds of heart attacks. Their study looked at data collected in a multinational clinical trial on unstable angina. Results showed women were about one-third less likely to be treated for their heart conditions. Women received significantly fewer angioplasties or coronary artery bypass surgeries to open clogged arteries than men.
The researchers traced the problem back to diagnostic testing. About 15 percent fewer women were sent for coronary angiography to document the presence of deadly blockages. Among people considered at high-risk for problems, 20 percent fewer women than men had the diagnostic tests.
Women in the study didnt appear to have more heart attacks or deaths than men, but they were significantly more likely to continue to suffer from symptoms of heart disease.
Why would doctors refer fewer women for testing? “Maybe women refuse procedures more than men, maybe there is a bias that causes physicians to feel that men are high-risk, so they should have procedures and not women, or maybe women have different chest pain symptoms than men,” says study author Sonia S. Anand, M.D., Ph.D., from McMaster University in Canada.
She plans to conduct additional studies to find out why women are missing out, including a survey of physicians aimed at uncovering their decision-making process.
SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2005;46:1845-1851