Review confirms knowledge gap in women's heart research

The underrepresentation of women means that evidence on the effectiveness of some cardiovascular treatments for female patients is less than sufficient.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Aug. 4, 2003.

Washington -- Although coronary heart disease is a leading cause of death among women, most research done over the past 20 years has either excluded women or failed to tease out the findings specific to women, according to researchers for two federal agencies.

"To date, most of the information on chronic diseases like heart disease has been collected from studies on men, and the findings have been extrapolated to women, said Rosaly Correa-de-Araujo, MD, PhD, senior adviser for Women's Health at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

This was done despite the fact that signs, symptoms, outcomes, or responses to therapy may be different in women than men, said Dr. Correa-de-Araujo.

AHRQ and the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health sponsored the research review, which was carried out by the Stanford University-University of California, San Francisco, Evidence-based Practice Center. The results were published by AHRQ.

The fact that the new findings come more than a decade after the realization that women were unwisely excluded from clinical studies isn't surprising to Dr. Correa-de-Araujo. It takes time to design and complete the large studies that are needed to fill the knowledge gaps, she said.

Meanwhile physicians and their female patients may be on slightly uncertain ground when it comes to weighing adequate treatments and prevention strategies. While AHRQ recommends that a follow-up research agenda be established, "for now the only thing one can do is to try to use the best evidence available," said Dr. Correa-de-Araujo.