Gender gap remains for heart attack care at hospitals, study finds

NEW YORK — Women hospitalized with heart attacks still don't get the treatment they need and are more likely to die than men if they suffer a massive heart attack, a new study of U.S. hospitals shows.

Overall, women survive heart attacks about as well as men when they are under a hospital's care. But the study found that a gender gap remains when women have the most serious type of heart attack. Women also get less of the recommended medicines and procedures than men, or it takes longer to get them.

"We're doing better but not good enough for women," said Dr. Hani Jneid, lead author of the study from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

The data came from 420 hospitals enrolled in an American Heart Association program to get doctors to follow guidelines for treating heart attack patients. Previous research has suggested that women's heart attacks were treated less aggressively.

The research was funded by the heart association and the findings were reported Monday in the group's medical journal, Circulation.

Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist who specializes in women's care, said the study suggests that women's heart attack symptoms still are not being taken seriously. Some women don't have typical symptoms like chest pains, she said, but may have pain lower in their bodies or severe shortness of breath.

"This really continues to be very disappointing," said Goldberg, who

is director of the Women's Heart Center at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. "I think my colleagues need to get on the stick."

The study examined the hospital treatment for 78,254 heart attack victims to see if guidelines were followed and how many died. Hospitals in the heart association's "Get with the Guidelines" program are required to put that information in a registry.

When they looked at heart attacks overall, about the same number of men and women died in the hospital. But when they looked at the most serious kind of heart attack, there was a difference.

These heart attacks are caused by a total blockage of an artery, which deprives the heart muscle of oxygen and blood and causes part of it to die. Diagnosis is done with an electrocardiogram, which spots distinctive changes. Quick action is needed to open up the artery to restore blood flow, either with a clot-dissolving drug or an angioplasty.