A European study claims that women and men have similar symptoms, but serious flaws subvert this conclusion.
Studies in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was missed more frequently in women. Other research suggested that AMI presents with different symptoms in women, diabetics, and elderly patients. In the current prospective study, researchers compared 34 chest pain characteristics in 1679 men and 796 women who presented with “symptoms suggestive of AMI” to emergency departments in Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.
AMI was ultimately diagnosed in 22% of men and 18% of women. Performance of the characteristics for discriminating between AMI and other causes of chest pain did not differ between men and women. There were no clinically important differences in prevalence of characteristics: For example, pain was “pressur…
Reviewing Author
DisclosuresConsultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education
Grant/Research SupportAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CDC; NIH–National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; NIH–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); NIH–NIAID–Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group; Merck; Pfizer; Boehringer-Ingelheim; Shire; Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Novartis; bioMérieux; Siemens; Rapid Pathogen Screening; Magnolia; Stago; Innovative Biosensors; Molecular Detection, Inc.; Dyax Corp.; Trius Pharmaceuticals
DisclosuresConsultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education
Grant/Research SupportAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CDC; NIH–National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; NIH–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); NIH–NIAID–Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group; Merck; Pfizer; Boehringer-Ingelheim; Shire; Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Novartis; bioMérieux; Siemens; Rapid Pathogen Screening; Magnolia; Stago; Innovative Biosensors; Molecular Detection, Inc.; Dyax Corp.; Trius Pharmaceuticals