Ischemic heart disease in women: facts and wishful thinking.

s m a p q c c want to share some information on the problem of schemic heart disease in women. Because of a focus on en, this topic has received inadequate attention, and the eneral assumption has been that what is true for men is also rue for women. In this overview, I will try to separate the acts from the wishful thinking that has evolved on this opic, largely due to deficiencies in our knowledge base. ome questions will help to focus this overview. First, how mportant is ischemic heart disease in women? I will discuss ome differences observed in clinical outcomes of women ompared to men and also compared to women without schemic heart disease. Second, I will deal with some of the iagnoses and management dilemmas in women with ischmic heart disease. Specifically, these include concerns elated to the meaning of angina, whether women have ore comorbidities, a different disease, or even genderelated bias rather than a different expression of disease. I ill use two recent projects as sources of new data to llustrate some important points. Finally, I will suggest what believe is needed for the future.