Close heart-care gender gap

Cardiovascular disease is a major killer of women. It kills far more women than breast cancer. It is a somewhat misunderstood group of diseases because symptoms in women can be different from those in men. As such, women hesitate to seek medical care because they believe their symptoms may indicate some other, lesser issue. Women may put their own health issues last as they care for other family members.

While some of those factors can explain why women hesitate to seek care for cardiovascular disease, it is much more difficult to understand why women are less likely to receive appropriate and timely treatment for a heart attack, according to a new report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The report found that, when compared to men, women were 14 percent less likely to receive early aspirin and 13 percent less likely to receive angioplasty within 30 minutes of arriving at a hospital.

Research also determined women were more likely to die if hospitalized for a more serious type of heart attack known as ST-elevation myocardial infarction.

Both of these issues are troubling and deserve further investigation into whether physicians fail to administer the optimal therapies to women or whether their treatment decisions were made based on biological differences between the sexes.

It also bears investigation whether women arrive at hospitals sicker because their heart attack symptoms could be mistaken for other medical issues. Symptoms can include nausea, dizziness, clammy sweats or shortness of breath. Since most people are not medically trained, it makes sense that they do not recognize possible heart attack symptoms. But once they enter a health-care setting, simple tests should be available to help determine why the patient presents certain symptoms. At the very least, basic therapies such as giving patients aspirin should be provided when appropriate.

Hopefully this new report will provide a training opportunity for hospitals and medical schools. When it comes to heart disease, men and women can present different symptoms. But the care they receive in a hospital setting should be the best practice regardless of gender.