New blood test could help stop heart attack and stroke survivors suffering a second
The TRIPLEcheck test has been developed by scientists at the University of Reading
A new blood test could help stop survivors of a heart attack or stroke from suffering another one.
The test, called TRIPLEcheck, has been developed at the University of Reading to help doctors make better decisions about which drugs to prescribe.
There are 200,000 heart attacks and strokes in the UK every year, which works out at around one every two-and-a-half minutes.
Most of these patients are given antiplatelet drugs, which prevent a second heart attack or stroke by stopping platelets, the tiny blood cells that block blood vessels, from clumping together.
But the drugs don't work in some patients, and in others they work too well and cause bleeding.
The TRIPLEcheck test can show doctors where platelets are likely to keep clumping, and where treatment should be stepped down because bleeding is the greater danger.
Professor Jon Gibbins, who led the work at the University of Reading, said: "For decades, every patient has been given the same drugs at the same strength, even though scientists know that patients' platelets respond differently to medication from person to person. Our inability to give the right medication to the right patient is part of why second heart attacks and strokes keep happening.
"TRIPLEcheck lets us measure each patient's risk before we choose their treatment, making medicines safer and more effective. Our trial could improve the treatment of heart attacks and strokes worldwide, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths and saving the NHS millions of pounds every year."
Heart and blood vessel disease is behind about a third of all deaths around the world, adding up to around 20 million deaths a year.
In the UK, it takes around 170,000 lives a year, which is more than a quarter of all deaths in the country.
Drugs that stop blood clots have already transformed heart care, with death rates from heart and blood vessel disease in the UK falling by three-quarters over the past 60 years, but progress appears to have stalled.
TRIPLEcheck was designed using data from around 650 healthy volunteers and checked on 350 patients with heart disease.
The test needs just one small tube of blood, taken alongside a patient's other routine blood tests when they arrive at hospital.
A new British Heart Foundation trial has just started that will recruit a further 400 heart attack patients to demonstrate how TRIPLEcheck is used in clinical care.
HaemAnalytica, a University of Reading spin-out company co-founded by Professor Gibbins and Associate Professor Chris Jones, aims to get the test into hospitals within five years.