Women are usually older and sicker when they have a heart attack.
However, they also get less aggressive treatments and don't rush to the hospital as quickly, two teams of researchers reported at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Atlanta on April 1. In one study, Dr. John Canto at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and colleagues analyzed the care of 327,040 men and women of all ages treated at about 1,500 hospitals in the United States from 1994 to 1996. In the other study, Dr. Sandra Gan, director of non-invasive cardiac services at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, and colleagues analyzed the care of over 180,000 Medicare patients over age 65 between 1994 and 1995. Only 6.7 percent of the postmenopausal women were on a hormone replacement regimen, compared with the national average of 25 - 30 percent. Researchers found that women are about 50 percent more likely to die from their heart attacks than are men.