U.S. scientists have found women who are offered implantable heart monitors following cardiac arrest are less likely than men to agree to use them.

   Duke University Medical Center researchers studied the records of more than 236,000 Medicare patients from 1999-2005 and found that when implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, or ICDs, were prescribed, men were two to three times more likely than women to use them.

   An ICD is a 3-inch device that constantly monitors heart rhythms and uses electrical shocks to help control erratic rhythms that could cause the heart to stop beating.

   The study led by Assistant Professor Lesley Curtis appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A companion paper from Duke researchers in the same issue examines ICD use among patients in a subset of U.S. hospitals involved in the American Heart Association's heart failure quality improvement program. That study found essentially the same thing.

   "We don't know why the difference exists but we do know that this is bad news for women," said senior author Dr. Kevin Schulman.

--