Stable or not, woman or man: is there a difference?

This editorial refers to ‘Women and men with stable coronary artery disease have similar clinical outcomes: insights from the international prospective CLARIFY registry’, by P.G. Steg et al. , doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehs289 In 2010 a dedicated group of researchers interested in women's hearts, gathered in Brussels for a workshop discussing gender differences in cardiovascular disease (CVD).1 The workshop was undertaken as a result of an earlier report the same year from the European Heart Health Strategy (Euro-Heart) project showing that women are still under-represented in many cardiovascular clinical trials.2Fewer women than men have been included in cardiovascular trials and, consequently, the evidence base is less firm for women regarding several treatments. The mean percentage of women enrolled in cardiovascular clinical trials since 2006 was 30%, while only 50% of trials reported results by gender analysis. Fewer evidence-based preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic options for women with CVD may lead to undertreatment and a lower quality of care in comparison with men.Prospective studies to elucidate whether there are true differences in the effects of different treatment strategies according to gender and outcome are greatly needed to identify the most appropriate treatment for men and women, respectively ( Table  …