More than 84,000 Canadians will have a heart attack this year, of those, one-in-five will have a second heart attack, stroke, or will die within three years. However, the results of a new study on anti-platelet therapy shows promise to reduce those numbers.

“The purpose of the study was to see if two drugs, which inhibit the clotting factors in the blood, would reduce the chances of a heart attack or a stroke in patients who had previously had a heart attack,” says cardiologist Dr. David Marr.

Dr. Marr, who works out of Saint John, was one of 56 Canadian investigators in the global study.

It followed 21,000 patients whose heart attack happened between one and three years earlier. Then those patients were monitored for three more years and given one of three treatments:

• The study drug at a dose of 90 milligrams - taken twice daily.

• The study drug at a dose of 60 milligrams - taken twice daily.

• Or, a placebo.

Each participant was also given low-dose aspirin.

“What we showed with the active agents, compared against the placebo, is that there was a reduction in death, heart attack, and stroke,” says Marr.

In fact, the findings showed patients reduced their relative risk by 15 per cent with the 90 milligram dose and 16 per cent with the 60 milligram dose.

Typically patients are on both an anti-platelet drug and aspirin after a heart attack or stroke. Then, after a year, most patients continue with just aspirin. However, these findings may change that course of treatment.

“What this study tells us is that there is probably a larger group of patients that we can continue on the two drugs with and get benefit from,” says Marr.

Dr. Marr says this type of therapy is not for all patients and treatment would be highly individualized. Still, it's offering hope to those with an increased risk.

“I'm happy to take whatever I have to take to keep on trucking, it's just really as simple as that,” says Don Clark.

Clark considers himself lucky to be alive.

While on a walk in 2008, he collapsed on a neighbour's lawn.

“All of a sudden my chest got very, very tight and I got very short of breath and I went very quickly to, it was like a horse was standing on my chest. I've never had such pain,” says Clark.

Luckily, he had a bottle of nitroglycerin, prescribed to him years earlier as a precaution after a mini-stroke. He sprayed it under his tongue, recovered and returned home.

Over the next week, the same thing happened twice more.

Finally, he went to the hospital and was given a dye test.

“The next day I had a triple bypass,” says Clark.

After surgery, Clark was put on anti-platelet therapy. He's been on it ever since, though sometimes, reluctantly.

“I spoke to the doctors and I wanted to get off as much medication as I could because the natural inclination is, I don't want to take pills and things if I don't have to, but the reality is, I still have to and thank God I do,” says Clark.

Clark says, in light of the new study, he's grateful to be on the medication.