Excerpt

At present, gender-specific disparities still persist in cardiovascular health and care, and specifically in the delivery and outcomes of coronary revascularisation therapy. Of the 1.3 million percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures performed in 2006 in the USA, only 35% were performed in women. This is rather surprising since the benefits of PCI, particularly in high-risk women with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), are well known. Moreover, for those women treated with PCI, unadjusted mortality and (vascular and bleeding) complication rates remain significantly higher than in men. …