Women with same health conditions as men ‘less likely to be offered active treatment’ — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- University of St Andrews researchers analyzed 38 global studies and found that in 33 of them, women were less likely than men to be offered active treatment for the same condition, according to the review published in Plos One.
- Men with cardiovascular conditions — myocardial infarction, heart failure or irregular heartbeat — were more likely to receive surgical interventions such as coronary bypass or stents, while women were more often given medication only and were less likely to be prescribed statins.
- Female Parkinson's patients were less likely to be referred for deep brain stimulation; women with liver failure were less likely to receive transplants; kidney patients were less often given permanent dialysis access and spent longer on catheters; and women were less likely to be prescribed opioids for pain management.
- For stroke and diabetes, the review found no significant gender difference in treatment, though women were more likely than men to be treated for dementia.
- The analysis found that none of the 38 studies identified any clinical guideline recommending different treatment by sex, raising the question of whether bias rather than medical justification drives the gap.
- Dr Andrew O'Malley, who co-led the study, said doctors more often attributed women's symptoms to anxiety and made more diagnostic errors with female patients, even when test results were positive.
- Then-health secretary Wes Streeting said in March that women were being let down by "medical misogyny," while the previous Conservative government appointed Lesley Regan as England's first women's health ambassador to tackle the gender gap.
Why it matters: In 33 of 38 reviewed studies spanning cardiology, transplant medicine, neurology and emergency care, women received less aggressive treatment than men for identical conditions — and researchers found no clinical guideline justifying the gap, pointing to systemic bias rather than medical necessity as the driver of care disparities affecting millions of female patients.
Ask SkimNews
