Minneapolis medical conference will address why men and women are treated differently for heart attacks

Men and women are different when it comes to matters of the heart. And that's not relationship advice.

Women's hearts are more susceptible to certain kinds of diseases, and they produce symptoms that can lead to different care in emergency situations than men would get. Rather than feeling the classic complaint of extreme pressure in the chest during a heart attack, some women feel shortness of breath or upper-abdominal pain that they or their doctors may chalk up to acid reflux or anxiety.

Even though coronary heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, clinical trials for medical devices to treat cardiovascular disease still enroll two men for every female participant. That long-standing imbalance — and the efforts to address it — will be a topic for discussion this week at AdvaMed 2016, the national med-tech industry conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center that runs through Wednesday.

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-medical-conference-will-address-why-men-and-women-are-treated-differently-for-heart-attacks/397172781/