A simple scoring system could change the way doctors prevent heart attacks and strokes by identifying patients who would benefit most from blood-thinning medications. Researchers behind this breakthrough test, called the TRIPLE Score, say it could help doctors make more informed decisions about preventive treatments like aspirin and clopidogrel.
The study, published in Circulation Research, suggests that this test could save lives and reduce healthcare costs by targeting the right patients for preventive medication, rather than only treating those who have already suffered a heart attack or stroke.
How the TRIPLE Score Works
Currently, blood-thinning medications are only prescribed after a heart attack or stroke because they carry risks, including serious bleeding. Until now, doctors lacked a reliable way to predict who would benefit from preventive treatmentwithout facing major side effects.
The TRIPLE Score is designed to solve this problem by measuring specific proteins on blood platelets along with a patient’s age. These factors help assess how likely a person’s blood is to form dangerous clots that could lead to a heart attack or stroke.
This test is still in development and not yet widely available. However, researchers aim to refine it into a quick and easy point-of-care test. In the future, a finger-prick version may be available, making it as simple as checking blood glucose levels.
Could This Test Help Save Lives?
Dr. Alexander Bye, lead author of the study at the University of Reading, believes this test could significantly reduce heart attacks.
“Each year, around 100,000 heart attacks occur in the UK, despite advances in prevention,” he said. “If we can smarter use drugs like aspirin, we may be able to lower this number. Our new test will help ensure that patients get the right treatment while maintaining their quality of life.”
The study found that the TRIPLE Score successfully identified patients whose blood was more likely to form clots in laboratory tests. These results also matched up with existing risk assessments that doctors already use to estimate a patient’s 10-year heart attack risk.
A Game-Changer for Heart Attack Prevention
Professor Neil Ruparelia, a cardiologist at Royal Berkshire Hospital, believes this test could be a major breakthroughfor heart disease prevention in the NHS.
“Right now, we’re in a tough position,” he explained. “We know blood thinners can prevent heart attacks, but we can’t safely give them to everyone because of the risk of serious bleeding. With this test, we can finally pinpoint which patients will benefit the most from preventive treatment.”
If widely implemented, the TRIPLE Score could:
Prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes
Reduce unnecessary bleeding risks from overprescribing blood thinners
Save the NHS millions in emergency care costs
What’s Next?
The researchers have formed a spin-out company, HaemAnalytica, to make platelet function tests like TRIPLE Scoremore widely available. Their goal is to personalize heart attack prevention, helping doctors give the right treatment to the right patients at the right time.
If future studies confirm its effectiveness, this test could become a routine part of heart disease prevention, giving doctors a powerful new tool to protect at-risk patients before a heart attack or stroke occurs.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that vitamin K helps cut heart disease risk by a third, and a year of exercise reversed worrisome heart failure.
For more health information, please see recent studies about supplements that could help prevent heart disease, stroke, and results showing this food ingredient may strongly increase heart disease death risk.
The research findings can be found in Circulation Research.
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