THOUSANDS of heart attack victims could be saved each year by giving them a combination of aspirin and an anti-clotting drug called clopidogrel, according to a new study.

The emergency treatment should be considered routinely for suspected heart attacks as it can safely reduce hospital deaths for a wide range of patients.

About ten million people have heart attacks every year worldwide. Although improvements have been made in emergency treatment, the risks of early death and repeat heart attacks remain high.

Dr Zheng-Ming Chen, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues, recruited more than 45,800 patients during their admission with heart attacks at 1,250 hospitals in China.

The researchers, whose findings are published in the Lancet, randomly allocated patients 75mg of clopidogrel daily or a dummy pill, in addition to daily aspirin until they were discharged or had spent up to four weeks in hospital.

They found clopidogrel reduced the relative risk of deaths by 9 per cent when compared with the placebo. They also found that patients allocated clopidogrel had a 14 per cent reduction in repeat heart attacks during the scheduled treatment period. The results show that the treatment is safe, with no apparent increase in life-threatening bleeding.

Dr Chen said: "If early clopidogrel therapy was given in hospital to just one million of the ten million patients who have a heart attack every year then it would, on present evidence, prevent about 5,000 deaths and 5,000 non-fatal repeat heart attacks and strokes.

In a second part of the study the group looked at the effect of giving patients early intravenous then oral beta-blocker therapy in the emergency treatment of heart attacks.

The team found that the treatment could cut the relative risk of repeat heart attacks by up to 20 per cent, but increased the relative risk of cardiac shock by 30 per cent, especially during the first day or so after admission.