Heart attack: another proof of the benefits of stem cells
Stem cells provided stable improvement of heart function after a heart attack
Copper news
Scientists from the University of Louisville and Brigham Women's Hospital presented at the American Heart Association conference the results of the use of autologous adult stem cells in patients who have suffered a myocardial infarction, EurekAlert reports! (2 years out, patients receiving stem cell therapy show sustained heart function improvement).
According to Roberto Bolli from Louisville and Piero Anversa from Brigham, all patients who received stem cell therapy in phase I clinical trials showed an improvement in cardiac function. They had an increase in the left ventricular ejection fraction, which is a standard indicator of heart function and is expressed in the amount of blood ejected by the left ventricle of the heart during heart contractions.
The studies, called SCIPIO (Stem Cell Infusion in Patients with Ischemic CardiOmyopathy), are randomized open trials of heart stem cells (SCS) in patients with heart failure resulting from myocardial infarction and left ventricular ejection fraction less than 40 percent. Normally, this fraction is 50 percent or higher.
Scientists have identified SCS as c-kit-positive cells, on the surface of which there is a c-kit protein, inherent, in particular, in hematopoietic stem cells, in 33 patients during coronary artery bypass surgery. The isolated cells were multiplied in the laboratory of Piero Anvers. A million cells grown in vitro were brought back into the area of the heart muscle affected by a heart attack. Infusion of stem cells was received by 20 patients, in the control group there were 13.
According to the researchers, in 20 subjects, an increase in the ejection fraction of the left ventricle began to be observed four months after the infusion procedure. No changes in this indicator were observed in any patient of the control group.
The beneficial effect of introducing heart stem cells persisted and progressed. A year after the infusion, the left ventricular ejection fraction increased by an average of eight percent, two years later – by almost 13 percent.
No side effects of SCS therapy were noted.
Moreover, magnetic resonance imaging performed on nine patients who took part in clinical trials revealed signs of regeneration of the heart muscle: new muscle tissue replaced the areas that had become dead as a result of a heart attack. So, if the area affected by a heart attack before therapy was 33.9 grams, then in two years it decreased to 18.2 grams.
In one of the patients, Jim Dearing from Louisville, who survived two heart attacks, the left ventricular ejection fraction increased from 38 percent before SCS therapy to 58 percent two years after it. According to Bolli, "no cardiologist who looks at the echocardiogram of this person will be able to imagine that he had a heart attack and heart failure in general."
"The tests have shown the applicability of autologous stem cells to almost every patient," says Roberto Boli. He believes that the results obtained are the key to the continuation of clinical research.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru07.11.2012