Stem Cells Help Regrow Damaged Heart Tissue
By Liz Szabo
February 14, 2012 1:35PM
A new stem cell-heart study is having encouraging results, confirming the findings of another small study of heart stem cells. The new study found that giving stem cells -- harvested from patients, grown in the lab -- to heart attack patients reversed about half the injury to the heart, dissolving scar tissue and replacing it with living heart muscle.
sci-tech-today.com
Stem cells harvested from a patient's own heart can be used to help repair muscle damaged during a heart attack, according to a preliminary study published online Monday in The Lancet. Though it's too soon to know whether the technique will help patients live longer, the study is the second small, promising study of cardiac stem cells in three months.The latest study involved 25 patients who had suffered serious heart attacks; 24% of their heart's major pumping chamber had been replaced by scar tissue. One year later, doctors saw no improvement in those randomly assigned to get standard care. Among the 17 given stem cells, however, "we reversed about half the injury to the heart," said study author Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, in an e-mail. "We dissolved scar and replaced it with living heart muscle."... |
