Coronary heart disease in women: what do we know now?

Coronary heart disease is the single leading cause of death in women in the USA, and there is growing recognition that gender-specific efforts must be made to fully understand and appropriately treat the disease in the female population. While increasing attention is being focused on the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in women so that preventive as well as treatment efforts can be marshaled to combat this epidemic, much remains to be carried out. Although risk factors for coronary heart disease are generally similar between men and women, the magnitude of various factors may differ between the genders. Emerging data suggest that coronary heart disease may be a different entity in women compared with men, requiring different preventive, diagnostic and treatment strategies.