Excerpt

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death among women in the United States. More than 500,000 women die of cardiovascular disease each year, exceeding the number of deaths in men and the next seven causes of death in women combined. This translates into approximately one death every minute. This report focuses on women because of the differences in clinical presentation and coronary anatomy, which affect the treatment options for coronary artery disease (CAD). Currently available guidelines and systematic reviews provide specific treatment recommendations for women only among a subset of treatment options, and overall assume that treatment options are equally effective for both sexes when gender data are not available. However, women have a worse prognosis than men for manifestations of CAD such as acute myocardial infarction (MI), and some data suggest that women and men do not respond equally to the same treatments. Further, women are more likely than men to experience bleeding complications.

Contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Stakeholders
• Executive Summary
• Background
• Methods
  • Overview
  • Analytic Framework
  • Initial List of Research Needs
  • Creation of Stakeholder Group
  • Expansion of Research Gaps
  • Review of the Current Literature
  • Research Prioritization
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• References
• Abbreviations
• Appendix A Exact Search Strings
• Appendix B Table of Research Priorities Linked to Recent Publications and Ongoing Studies
• Appendix C Criteria for Research Prioritization

Prepared for: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services¹, Contract No. 290-2007-10066-I, Prepared by: Duke Evidence-based Practice Center, Durham, NC

Suggested citation:

Dolor, RJ, Patel MR, Melloni C, Chatterjee R, Heidenfelder BL, Musty MD, Chobot M, Irvine RJ, Sanders GD. Treatment Strategies for Women With Coronary Artery Disease: Future Research Needs. Future Research Needs Paper No. 42. (Prepared by the Duke Evidence-based Practice Center under Contract No. 290-2007-10066-I). AHRQ Publication No. 13-EHC073-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. February 2013. www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/reports.final.cfm.

This report is based on research conducted by the Duke Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) under contract to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Rockville, MD (Contract No. 290-2007-10066-I). The findings and conclusions in this document are those of the author(s), who are responsible for its contents; the findings and conclusions do not necessarily represent the views of AHRQ. Therefore, no statement in this report should be construed as an official position of AHRQ or of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The information in this report is intended to help health care researchers and funders of research make well-informed decisions in designing and funding research and thereby improve the quality of health care services. This report is not intended to be a substitute for the application of scientific judgment. Anyone who makes decisions concerning the provision of clinical care should consider this report in the same way as any medical research and in conjunction with all other pertinent information, i.e., in the context of available resources and circumstances.

None of the investigators have any affiliations or financial involvement that conflicts with the material presented in this report.

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