Women and Heart Disease: A Diagnostic Challenge

Diagnosing and managing women who are at risk or have known coronary heart disease (CHD) continues to be a challenge, despite advancing imaging technologies and recent public awareness campaigns. This challenge persists as a result of many contributing factors that all too often go unrecognized. The aim of this article is to establish the extent and possible causes of gender disparities related to CHD and explore 2 obstacles of diagnosing women with or at risk: subclinical coronary disease and noninvasive diagnostic imaging.