Is heart disease diagnosed differently in women?
For years, doctors used the standard exercise ECG (electrocardiogram), or stress test, in men and women. Patients were hooked up to machines and asked to run on a treadmill while we watched their blood pressure, heart rate and heart. But the tests often produced false positives for women; the ECG was abnormal, even though the women didn’t have heart disease. Doctors don’t know why. Using imaging studies with stress tests is more helpful. Getting an image of the heart before exercise and another afterward produces more accurate results. The images show how your heart is affected by exercise, which tells us whether you have heart disease.
