Congestive heart failure medications: is there a rationale for sex-specific therapy?

The etiology and physiology of symptomatic heart failure may differ by sex. Prognostic markers for outcomes of CHF may also have sex-specific sensitivity. Insufficient numbers of women have been enrolled in most large interventional survival studies of pharmacologic therapy for CHF to test for sex-specific efficacy or responses. There are some data that demonstrate sex-specific lack of efficacy and increase in side effects of therapy. Given that the number of women admitted to hospitals with CHF each year exceeds the number of men, there is an obvious need to specifically and definitively evaluate the pharmacologic therapy of CHF in women.