Specialists at Queen Mary Hospital are adopting a new treatment developed overseas that can reduce the chances of a second heart attack in patients by 36 per cent.
The treatment involves combining standard therapy involving aspirin to help thin the blood with a drug called clopidogrel to prevent blood clotting.
Overseas clinical trials - involving 3,419 severe heart-attack patients aged 18 to 75 in 23 countries - showed clopidogrel used in addition to standard treatment reduced the chances of blocked arteries and recurrent heart attacks by 36 per cent.
The results of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March.
Chen Wai-hong, assistant professor of cardiology at the University of Hong Kong, said this was a major breakthrough.
'This is the first advancement in the drug treatment of heart attack since the last breakthrough more than 10 years ago with the introduction of aspirin,' said Dr Chen, who is also a cardiologist at Queen Mary Hospital.
