Opening Clogged Arteries Helps Women After Heart Attack

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It's not entirely clear why women should differ from men in this particular cardiac problem, she said. One possibility is that women are more likely to have other conditions that complicate the situation, such as diabetes, O'Donoghue said. "Or they may have a different kind of heart disease, one that affects the smaller blood vessels," she said. Catheterization would not open these small vessels.

Whatever the reason, the study provides evidence to support updated guidelines of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, which recommend a conservative strategy for women with acute coronary syndromes, the formal name for heart attacks and unstable angina, the researchers reported.

The researchers won praise from Dr. Nanette Wenger, a professor of medicine at Emory University who was in the group that updated the American Heart Association guidelines, for their efforts at getting the data.

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"Often, gender-specific analysis is not done," Wenger said of the earlier reports. "They were able to get from the principal investigators of these trials some data not reported in the papers. This supports precisely what we said in the guidelines."

"This is more evidence that we can't use a one-style-fits-all approach when it comes to treating patients with acute coronary syndrome," said Dr. Sidney C. Smith, director of the University of North Carolina Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine, who also helped update the guidelines. "We have to consider risk as well as gender. This is an important study, and it provides support for the new guidelines."

More information

The details of catheterization are explained by the American Heart Association.

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