For more info visit newsinfusion.com Washington D.C. (February 2, 2010) – The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) launched “WINHeart – Score a WIN for Women,” an initiative that raises awareness surrounding gender-based disparities in the diagnosis, treatment and survival of women with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Simultaneously, Women In Innovations (WIN), a group of interventional cardiologists within SCAI, today released a new report and survey that illustrate why cardiovascular disease is under-recognized and under-treated in women despite the near split in prevalence of heart disease between men and women. The report, “Gender-based Issues in Interventional Cardiology: A Consensus Statement from the Women in Innovations (WIN) Initiative,” was published this week in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, EuroIntervention, and Revista Española de Cardiología, and will also be published in Cardiovascular Intervention and Therapeutics. It highlights significant disparities in women’s treatment and outcomes. One suspected reason for the disparity is women account for only 20 to 25 percent of patients enrolled in most CVD clinical trials. “The majority of data from clinical trials is based on a population of mostly male participants, and as a result, women are being treated according to data based on men,” says Roxana Mehran, MD, FSCAI, director of outcomes research at the Center of Interventional Vascular Therapies at Columbia University, N.Y., and report co-author. “With this information, it is not surprising women’s outcomes are significantly worse than men’s after treatment. What is surprising is that more is not being done to close this gap, which is what we seek to address through WINHeart.” The WINHeart survey, with more than 300 respondents who are members of WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, found 80 percent of women who had CVD never considered participating in clinical trials because they were not aware clinical trials were ...
