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New research finds that women who experience chest pain are at much higher risk for heart attack, stroke or even death, compared with women who do not have chest discomfort.

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University of Florida cardiology experts studied more than five-hundred adult women who had experienced chest pain but whose cath lab heart exam revealed no blocked arteries or other apparent problems. Researchers then looked at one thousand adult women from a Chicago area heart study who were also otherwise healthy, but did not report chest pain. The results, reported at the American Heart Association's scientific sessions in Chicago in November 2006, showed those who had chest discomfort had a four-fold increased risk of having a future cardiovascular event within the next five years, such as hospitalization for heart failure, a stroke, heart attack or death, compared with the women who did not have chest pain.

Dr. Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff / UF heart specialist

"Our findings suggest that women who present with chest pain, even though they do not have obstruction in a major cardiac vessel, have a higher occurrence of major adverse outcomes within five years than women who are followed and have no heart disease."

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Doctors say these study results are something of a wakeup call, as chest pain in women is sometimes ignored or minimized by primary care physicians. Researchers are now working to find ways to better identify and treat women at increased risk. Experts believe one culprit might be tiny clogs in smaller vessels …which are much harder to spot.

Dr. Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff / UF heart specialist

"Cardiologists and physicians should be aware that women who routinely present with chest pain but do not show obstruction in their major vessels, there is still some disease process going on and they are still at increased risk."

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At the University of Florida Health Science Center, I'm Mike Garrison