LONDON, Feb 19: Most heart attack victims in Europe are still not given aspirin as potentially life-saving first aid, cardiologists said on Wednesday.

The European Society of Cardiology also said the chances of surviving heart disease varied widely across the continent.

It said a significant proportion of doctors rarely stuck to guidelines for the disease.

A survey of 39,000 patients in 34 countries shows that only about 40 percent of heart attack patients got aspirin before reaching hospital even though this cheap drug has been shown in large trials to be a highly effective clot-buster.

Heart disease kills more than four million Europeans a year and accounts for two in five deaths in people under 74.

The chances of dying from it vary significantly between countries because of different diets, rates of smoking and obesity, as well as standards of medical care.

Prevention and treatment guidelines exist to help doctors combat heart disease but are widely ignored in some places.

Only a fifth of doctors in France and Poland adhered to the guidelines, compared to one third in Germany and Italy, and three-quarters in Spain and Britain.—Reuters