Women more likely to have delays in emergency heart care

Women who called 911 for help with heart attack symptoms were more likely than men to experience delays in their care once emergency responders reached them, according to a study by Boston researchers conducted in Texas.

Writing in the journal Circulation, Thomas W. Concannon of Tufts Medical Center and colleagues from Harvard report that women in Dallas County, Texas, were 52 percent more likely to have a lag time of 15 minutes or more beyond the average 34 minutes it took emergency medical services workers to reach them and get them to a hospital.

Other studies have focused on differences in care once patients arrive at a hospital. This study tracked emergency calls made by 5,887 patients from January through December 2004.

"Although our analysis does not reveal why women were more likely to be delayed, previous research suggests a plausible explanation: symptom presentation in women with cardiac disease differs from that of men and a coronary event may not be recognized as readily by the patient or by EMS personnel," the authors write.