But the findings do not necessarily mean that men are getting better care than women, one of the study's authors said. Minn. But the study showed that over the following six years, women had fewer heart attacks and were less likely to die than men. The study included 1,306 men and 965 women who went to hospital emergency rooms because of unstable angina.
Classic angina is chest pain that occurs on exertion.
In contrast, unstable angina also can occur at rest, and is regarded as a sign of worsening heart disease and increased risk for heart attack. Men also were about 40 percent more likely to undergo coronary angiography, a test in which the heart is X-rayed after being injected with dye to outline heart arteries. Even though women were less likely to undergo cardiac testing than men, they tended to fare better than men over the next six years, the researchers reported. During that time, men were more likely to die, although the difference in death rates was not statistically significant.