Background and objective: Symptoms of coronary artery disease (CAD) and the accuracy of non-invasive tests differ between men and women. This study sought to evaluate the difference between the predictive value of a stress test in clinical practice for the diagnosis of significant coronary heart disease (CHD: stenosis > 50%) between women and men with stable angina.
Patients and methods: 143,848 consecutive patients undergoing diagnostic coronary angiography at 99 hospitals during 2002 were included in the prospective cardiac catheter registry of the Working Party of Senior Hospital Cardiologists (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Leitende Kardiologische Krankenhausärzte [ALKK]). All patients with stress test and stable angina CCS class I-III (n=27387; 20.4%) were included, 10,911 (39.8%) of them female. 70.6% of women and 73.2% of men had a positive stress test.
Results: In 46.1% of women and 71.5% of men with positive test and stable angina had relevant CHD (p<0,001). Diabetes increased the prevalence of CHD in patients with a positive test both in women (65.5%) and men (80.5%), with CCS class III angina to 63.3% and 85.8%, respectively.
Conclusions: In clinical practice a positive stress test in women with stable angina is associated significantly less often with clinically relevant CHD than in men. The low positive predictive value of 46.1% underlines the need for additional clinical features like diabetes or cardiac symptoms (CCS class) before invasive diagnosis is performed.