Australian doctors have been given a $3.3 million injection to test breakthrough technology against heart attacks which claims 23 lives each day.

Sydney researchers will use the money to spearhead an international trial which aims to salvage and restore the heart of patients who have poor outcomes.

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's interventional cardiologist, Associate Professor Martin Ng, said there has not been any progress in the two decades since stenting technology was used to reopen blocked arteries.

"We have been over the last 20 years, kind of stumped in terms of getting more progress on this major problem," Dr Ng said.

"Unfortunately half the time when I open up the blocked artery in my patient with a heart attack, the reality is that I cannot get any more blood down their heart and they will suffer a massive heart attack."

New technology is allowing doctors to measure pressure on the heart and blood flow. (9NEWS)

Doctors say it happens because they cannot see or treat the smaller blood vessels downstream.

These microvessels supply 80 percent of the heart but they cannot be identified in x-ray images in the procedure room.

"These small vessels are really the problem because up to half the patients who we have brought to the procedure room and unblocked their big arteries, still have their small arteries clogged up," Dr Ng said.

"The patients who have these small artery blockages are the ones that are much more likely to die or suffer from heart failure in the future," said Dr Andy Yong, Staff Interventional Cardiologist at Concord and RPA Hospitals.

The team at RPA has spent a decade developing a method that can measure blockages downstream.

The information allows doctors to asses the condition of tiny vessels which cannot be seen on x-ray. (9NEWS)

The method is called the Index of Microvascular Resistance.

A tiny wire, the size of a human hair, is deployed into the large arteries of the heart and sensors within the wire can measure pressure and blood flow.

The information enables doctors to assess the condition of the tiny vessels that can't be seen on x-ray.

If they are blocked, clot-busting medication can then be infused into the heart's tiny vessels.

The National Health and Medical Research Council has awarded the University of Sydney team $3.3 million to pursue the trial which will involve 1,666 patients around the world.

"It allows us to take heart attack therapy to what we view as the final frontier," Dr Ng said.