From Stem Cell TV Headline News -
It’s unusual for the U.S. to lead in such a big stem cell breakthrough – but, US scientists have for the first time, used stem cells from heart patients to repair their own cardiac muscle and its pumping ability. Regrowing hearts. The revolutionary findings came from two separate studies, one of which involved 25 people with heart failure and the other included sixteen heart attack victims. During the first trail carried out by Dr. Eduardo Marban and his colleagues of Cedars Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, some seventeen patients received stem cells obtained and developed from their own heart’s muscle while eight other participants just got standard health care services.
The American Heart Association report states that the cells were cultured in lab to develop about two million stem cells for each recipient and then were injected to their heart.
Within a year after the injection, all recipients improved significantly and on average 50 percent of their damaged heart tissue was replaced by new healthy and functioning cells. The eight control patients, however, didn’t show any considerable progress in their heart function.
Another study led by Dr. Roberto Bolli, showed that stem cell injection may also help patients suffering from damages caused by a heart attack. ”If this is confirmed in further studies, it could offer an entirely new option and a potential cure for patients who are now dying from heart failure,” said said Dr Bolli, director of cardiology at University of Louisville and lead author of the study published today in The Lancet.
Among 14 patients who responded to the stem cell treatment, the heart’s blood-pumping efficiency increased from 30.3 percent before the treatment to 38.5 percent while those participants who did not receive the stem cell treatment showed no improvement.
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