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Heart Centers for Women (HCW) developed as a response to the need for improved outcomes for women with cardiovascular disease (CVD). From 1984 until 2012, more women died of CVD every single year in comparison with men. Initially, there was limited awareness and sex-specific research regarding mortality or outcomes in women. HCW played an active role in addressing these disparities, provided focused care for women, and contributed to improvements in these gaps. In 2014 and 2015, death from CVD in women had declined below the level of death from CVD in comparison with men. Even though awareness of CVD in women has increased among the public and healthcare providers and both sex- and gender-specific research is currently required in all research trials, not all women have benefitted equally in mortality reduction. New strategies for HCW need to be developed to address these disparities and expand the current HCW model. The HCW care team needs to direct academic curricula on sex- and gender-specific research and care; expand to include other healthcare professionals and other subspecialties; provide new care models; address diversity; and include more male providers.

Socioeconomic status (SES) has a measurable and significant effect on cardiovascular health. Biological, behavioral, and psychosocial risk factors prevalent in disadvantaged individuals accentuate the link between SES and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Four measures have been consistently associated with CVD in high-income countries: income level, educational attainment, employment status, and neighborhood socioeconomic factors. In addition, disparities based on sex have been shown in several studies. Interventions targeting patients with low SES have predominantly focused on modification of traditional CVD risk factors. Promising approaches are emerging that can be implemented on an individual, community, or population basis to reduce disparities in outcomes. Structured physical activity has demonstrated effectiveness in low-SES populations, and geomapping may be used to identify targets for large-scale programs. Task shifting, the redistribution of healthcare management from physician to nonphysician providers in an effort to improve access to health care, may have a role in select areas. Integration of SES into the traditional CVD risk prediction models may allow improved management of individuals with high risk, but cultural and regional differences in SES make generalized implementation challenging. Future research is required to better understand the underlying mechanisms of CVD risk that affect individuals of low SES and to determine effective interventions for patients with high risk. We review the current state of knowledge on the impact of SES on the incidence, treatment, and outcomes of CVD in high-income societies and suggest future research directions aimed at the elimination of these adverse factors, and the integration of measures of SES into the customization of cardiovascular treatment.

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) has emerged as an important cause of acute coronary syndrome, myocardial infarction, and sudden death, particularly among young women and individuals with few conventional atherosclerotic risk factors. Patient-initiated research has spurred increased awareness of SCAD, and improved diagnostic capabilities and findings from large case series have led to changes in approaches to initial and long-term management and increasing evidence that SCAD not only is more common than previously believed but also must be evaluated and treated differently from atherosclerotic myocardial infarction. High rates of recurrent SCAD; its association with female sex, pregnancy, and physical and emotional stress triggers; and concurrent systemic arteriopathies, particularly fibromuscular dysplasia, highlight the differences in clinical characteristics of SCAD compared with atherosclerotic disease. Recent insights into the causes of, clinical course of, treatment options for, outcomes of, and associated conditions of SCAD and the many persistent knowledge gaps are presented.

A preliminary report on medical radiation exposures to the US population based on publicly available sources of data estimated that the collective dose received from medical uses of radiation has increased by >700% between 1980 and 2006.1 Computed tomography (CT) has had an annual growth rate of >10% per year and accounted for ≈50% of the collective dose in 2006. Approximately 65% of the collective CT dose is from studies of chest, abdomen, and pelvis. In 2006, cardiac CT accounted for 1.5% of the collective CT dose; however, utilization of cardiac CT is expected to rise, with the potential to further increase exposure to the population.1 Nuclear medicine studies in the United States have increased by 5% annually to 20 million in 2006 and accounted for ≈25% of the 2006 collective medical radiation dose. Among nuclear medicine studies, cardiac imaging represented 57% of the number of studies and ≈85% of the radiation dose.1 A number of publications on imaging with CT, fluoroscopy, or radioisotopes have emphasized the risks that may be associated with exposure to ionizing radiation.2–4 To make informed decisions concerning the use of medical radiation in imaging procedures, the following are important components: (1) A working knowledge of the principles and uncertainties of the estimation of patient dose and biological risk; (2) a comparison of the risks of radiation exposure with the risks of activities in daily life; and (3) recognition of the potential risk of failing to make important diagnoses or treatment decisions if imaging is not performed because of safety concerns. There is no federal regulation of patient radiation dose, with the exception of mammography. Most federal and state regulations are aimed at equipment performance or the handling of nuclear materials. Therefore, appropriate utilization of the equipment or nuclear material in cardiac …

More than 1.2 million percutaneous coronary interventions are performed annually in the United States, with only an estimated 33% performed in women, despite the established benefits of percutaneous coronary intervention and adjunctive pharmacotherapy in reducing fatal and nonfatal ischemic complications in acute myocardial infarction and high-risk acute coronary syndromes. This statement reviews sex-specific data on the safety and efficacy of contemporary interventional therapies in women.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality for women in the United States. Coronary heart disease, which includes coronary atherosclerotic disease, myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndromes, and angina, is the largest subset of this mortality, with >240 000 women dying annually from the disease. Atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) is the focus of this consensus statement. Research continues to report underrecognition and underdiagnosis of CAD as contributory to high mortality rates in women. Timely and accurate diagnosis can significantly reduce CAD mortality for women; indeed, once the diagnosis is made, it does appear that current treatments are equally effective at reducing risk in both women and men. As such, noninvasive diagnostic and prognostic testing offers the potential to identify women at increased CAD risk as the basis for instituting preventive and therapeutic interventions. Nevertheless, the recent evidence-based practice program report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality noted the paucity of women enrolled in diagnostic research studies. Consequently, much of the evidence supporting contemporary recommendations for noninvasive diagnostic studies in women is extrapolated from studies conducted predominantly in cohorts of middle-aged men. The majority of diagnostic and prognostic evidence in cardiac imaging in women and men has been derived from observational registries and referral populations that are affected by selection and other biases. Thus, a better understanding of the potential impact of sex differences on noninvasive cardiac testing in women may greatly improve clinical decision making. This consensus statement provides a synopsis of available evidence on the role of the exercise ECG and cardiac imaging modalities, both those in common use as well as developing technologies that may add clinical value to the diagnosis and risk assessment of the symptomatic and asymptomatic woman with suspected CAD.

In recent decades, there has been an appropriate focus on ensuring gender equity in the quantity and quality of evidence to guide female-specific, optimal management strategies for suspected and known ischemic heart disease (IHD). The evolving evidence supports a multifactorial pathophysiology of coronary atherosclerosis that includes obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) and dysfunction of the coronary microvasculature and endothelium, and therefore, the term IHD best encompasses this varied pathophysiology in women. An overwhelming body of evidence has documented undertreatment and undertesting of women, leading to higher case fatality rates and increased morbid complications among women.1–3 Accordingly, to increase our knowledge base, women were given the status of a priority population, which resulted in federal policy to include proportional representation of females in clinical trials and registries.4 The past decade provided abundant evidence to guide clinical decision making regarding diagnostic testing for suspected IHD. In 2005, the American Heart Association (AHA) published an evidence synthesis on the use of CAD imaging for the evaluation of symptomatic women with suspected myocardial ischemia.5 Numerous reports have since provided additional high-quality evidence, including data on coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), which in 2005 were considered research techniques.5 The present statement provides an update to the 2005 document and synthesizes contemporary evidence on appropriate symptomatic female candidates for diagnostic testing, as well as sex-specific data on the diagnostic and prognostic accuracy for exercise treadmill testing (ETT) with electrocardiography, stress echocardiography, stress myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or positron emission tomography (PET), stress CMR, and CCTA.5 Within this document, quality evidence is synthesized, and important gaps in knowledge about the assessment of IHD risk in women are identified. The 2005 document included sections on the evaluation of asymptomatic …

Background— There is a paucity of randomized trials regarding diagnostic testing in women with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). It remains unclear whether the addition of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) to the standard ECG exercise treadmill test (ETT) provides incremental information to improve clinical decision making in women with suspected CAD. Methods and Results— We randomized symptomatic women with suspected CAD, an interpretable ECG, and ≥5 metabolic equivalents on the Duke Activity Status Index to 1 of 2 diagnostic strategies: ETT or exercise MPI. The primary end point was 2-year incidence of major adverse cardiac events, defined as CAD death or hospitalization for an acute coronary syndrome or heart failure. A total of 824 women were randomized to ETT or exercise MPI. For women randomized to ETT, ECG results were normal in 64%, indeterminate in 16%, and abnormal in 20%. By comparison, the exercise MPI results were normal in 91%, mildly abnormal in 3%, and moderate to severely abnormal in 6%. At 2 years, there was no difference in major adverse cardiac events (98.0% for ETT and 97.7% for MPI; P =0.59). Compared with ETT, index testing costs were higher for exercise MPI ( P P =0.0008). Overall, the cumulative diagnostic cost savings was 48% for ETT compared with exercise MPI ( P Conclusions— In low-risk, exercising women, a diagnostic strategy that uses ETT versus exercise MPI yields similar 2-year posttest outcomes while providing significant diagnostic cost savings. The ETT with selective follow-up testing should be considered as the initial diagnostic strategy in symptomatic women with suspected CAD. Clinical Trial Registration— http://www.clinicaltrials.gov . Unique identifier: NCT00282711.

Although multiple studies have shown excellent accuracy statistics for non-invasive angiography by 64-CCTA, most studies comparing nuclear imaging with CCTA were performed on patients already referred for cardiac catheterization, introducing verification and referral bias. This prospective trial evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of 64-row CCTA to detect obstructive coronary stenosis compared to MPI, using quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) as a reference standard. Methods: 12 sites prospectively enrolled 230 patients (pts) [52% male, 56.9 yrs] with chest pain who were referred for MPI to assess CAD. To date, 48 patients were clinically referred for invasive coronary angiography (ICA) for either positive MPI or abnormal CCTA. All Pts underwent both MPI and CCTA (Lightspeed VCT/Visipaque 320, GE Healthcare) prior to ICA. CCTAs were graded on a 15-segment AHA model by 2 blinded readers for presence of obstructive stenosis (≥50% or ≥70%); MPI was graded by 2 blinded readers using a 17 segment model for estimation of the % myocardium ischemic or with stress defects. ICAs were independently graded for % stenosis by QCA. Efficacy of MPI and CCTA were assessed including all vessel segments for per-patient and per-vessel analyses. Results: Prevalence of stenosis ≥50% by ICA was 52.1% (25/48). The diagnostic accuracy (per-patient analysis) of CCTA and stress MPI compared to ICA are reported in Table 1 . For ≥50% stenosis, the CTA odds ratio for ICA disease was 51.75 (95% CI=8.50–314.94). For SSS ≥5%, the odds ratio for ICA CAD was 12.73 (95% CI=2.43–66.55). Using ROC curve analysis, CCTA was better at classifying obstructive CAD when compared to MPI (Area=0.87 vs. 0.76, p Conclusions: This study represents the first prospective multicenter data comparing 64-row CCTA to MPI, demonstrating high diagnostic accuracy of CCTA to reliably detect >50% and >70% stenosis in chest pain patients. Diagnostic Accuracy Statistics for Coronary Computed Tomographic Angiography (CTA) and Stress Myocardial Perfusion Imaging (MPI) SPECT in Patients Prospectively Enrolled in the PICTURE Trial

Background: The PICTURE Trial evaluated the accuracy of 64-CT coronary angiography (CCTA) & MPI to invasive coronary angiography (ICA) for the detection of obstructive CAD. CCTA included an evaluation of Coronary Artery Calcium. The objective of this substudy was to evaluate the combination of measures of ischemia & atherosclerosis, with MPI & CAC respectively. Methods: 230 patients [52% male, 56.9 yrs] referred for MPI for chest pain were prospectively enrolled at 12 sites. 22% of patients underwent ICA for either abnormal MPI or coronary CCTA. The efficacy was assessed on a per-patient basis. Results: Of the 47 patients prospectively enrolled that underwent ICA, the prevalence of a >50% stenosis by ICA was 47% (22/47). Mean CAC for all patients was 434 +/−926. The frequency of obstructive CAD based on MPI & CAC are shown in the Figure . The odds (95% CI) for obstructive CAD is elevated 12.73-fold (2.43– 66.55) for ≥5% myocardium with stress defects (p100 to perfusion + EF increases the odds of obstructive CAD by 2.5-fold (1.31– 4.77, p=0.006). In patients with 100 increased the odds by 4.8-fold (0.95–24.14, p=0.057). ROC analysis revealed the % myocardium with stress defects categorized obstructive CAD with an area of 0.76 (95% CI=0.62– 0.90, p=0.002). Adding CAC improved the area to 0.85 (95% CI=0.74–0.96, p Conclusion: The addition of CAC to MPI improves diagnostic accuracy in the detection of obstructive CAD. Prevalence of ≥50% Obstructive CAD by MPI & CAC