
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990                   TAG: 9004160033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

REPORT SUGGESTS BIAS AGAINST FEMALE PATIENTS GETTING HEART BYPASSES

Women who have bypass surgery for heart disease are much sicker and slightly older than men who have the surgery, researchers said Sunday.

They said the finding could explain why those women were more likely to die as a result.

The study, published Sunday in Annals of Internal Medicine, found a bias against referring women for bypass surgery, said Dr. Steven S. Kahn, who conducted the research with colleagues at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"For women's symptoms to be acted on, they have to be significantly sicker," he said.

Dr. Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., said if the researchers' findings are correct, "it will add to the concern that is voiced in many circles" that although heart disease is a serious problem for women, it is not taken seriously enough by researchers or doctors.

Dr. Nanette K. Wenger, a cardiologist who is a professor at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said, "When women come in, they are in such critical condition that the operations have to be done on an emergency basis. Obviously, there will be a less favorable outcome."

by CNB