This study sought to determine whether women have more adverse in-hospital outcomes after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and stenting compared with men. There is still controversy regarding whether female gender is an independent predictor of mortality after PTCA. No study has examined gender differences in outcomes following the dissemination of stenting. Data were obtained from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. In 1997, there were 118,548 angioplasties (36% occurred in women and 59% involved placement of stents). Outcomes included same-admission mortality and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Analyses were performed separately for patients with and without acute myocardial infarction (AMI). In 1997, women had a roughly twofold higher mortality than men in every comparison group, including conventional PTCA alone and stents. Mortality rates after stenting were 4.0% for women and 2.0% for men with AMI (p <0.0001), and 1.1% and 0.5%, respectively, for patients without AMI (p <0.0001). The adjusted odds ratios were 1.47 (95% confidence interval 1.23 to 1.75), and 1.65 (95% confidence interval 1.33 to 2.04), respectively. Similarly, following stenting, women had significantly higher CABG rates than men in both the AMI (1.6% vs 1.2%, p = 0.025) and no AMI groups (1.5% vs 1.0%, p <0.0001). After multivariate adjustment, the results retained significance in the no AMI setting, whereas there was a trend toward significance in the AMI group. This study demonstrates that, despite improved overall outcomes in patients who received stents, women who underwent stenting had higher rates of same-admission mortality and CABG compared with men. Furthermore, it confirms that female gender is an independent predictor of mortality after conventional PTCA.