Stem cell therapy may aid heart attack survivors

Stem cell therapy may aid heart attack survivors

Stem cell therapy can help enlarged hearts due to heart attacks, inflammation and congestive heart failure shrink in size to more normal proportions within a year, a small clinical trial shows.

The process involves getting stem cells from the bone marrow of the patients then injecting them into the heart. Researchers noted that cardiac function improved in the first few months of treatment. Heart size was reduced by 15 to 20 percent, and scar tissue also declined by about 18 percent within a year of stem cell therapy.

The study, published March 17 in the medical journal Circulation Research, is a small one and needs to be validated by larger studies in the future.

"We can't say whether that'll be in three or seven years down the road. It's hard to speculate precisely," said study author Dr. Joshua M. Hare. "But we're taking sometime this decade."

But Hare and his team are also excited about the preliminary results of the stem cell therapy which could be a huge leap forward.

"The results are very encouraging," said Hare, who is professor of medicine and director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

The researchers used mononuclear and mesenchymal stem cells from the heart patients' hip bones and used a catheter to inject the stem cells. They said there were no serious side effects monitored during and after the treatment.

Medications or heart transplants are the current treatments for enlarged hearts. The researchers hope that standard treatment in the future will include stem cell therapy.

Posted by George Daniels on Sunday March 20 2011, 5:19 AM EDT. Ref: Business Week. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0