Heart attack and clotbusters

Every two minutes, someone in the UK suffers a heart attack, starving their heart of oxygen and threatening their life.

Life saving research

Research funded by the BHF has helped us to understand the condition and improve treatment. The discoveries by BHF scientists have helped save thousands of lives across the country, and treatment of heart attack in the UK is now among the best in the world.

Blood clots cause heart attacks

The late BHF Professor Michael Davies was one of the first scientists to clearly demonstrate that blood clots in the heart’s coronary arteries were a major cause of heart attacks. This breakthrough in the 1970’s paved the way for scientists around the world to look at why blood clots happen and to develop ‘clot-busting’ medicines to combat them.

Blood clot-busting medicine

The BHF funded a team that included Professors Peter Sleight and Rory Collins and their team in Oxford to carry out a large clinical trial – called ISIS2 – to establish which treatment was best for heart attack patients. Collins tested a combination of two medicines – aspirin and streptokinase, a clot-buster – which they suspected would be more effective for heart patients than any single treatment.

This new combination treatment reduced deaths amongst heart attack patients by around 40%. The ISIS trial also found that the earlier this combination of medicines was given after a heart attack, the better the outcome for the patient.

What’s next?

Sadly, around half of heart attacks are still fatal. Improvements in prevention of heart attacks can be made with research, which is why the BHF continue to fund scientists to help us understand more about the underlying processes.

Importantly, we’re also encouraging heart attack victims to give themselves the best chance of survival by calling 999 as soon as they experience symptoms.

To find out more see our Heart Attack campaign

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