Posted on 11/14/2011 8:11:41 PM PST by neverdem
Cardiac stem cell infusion improves left ventricular function and reduces infarct size in a phase I trial in patients with post-myocardial infarction heart failure, according to a study published online Nov. 14 in The Lancet to coincide with presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2011, held from Nov. 12 to 16 in Orlando, Fla.
MONDAY, Nov. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Cardiac stem cell (CSC) infusion improves left ventricular (LV) function and reduces infarct size in a phase I trial in patients with post-myocardial infarction (MI) heart failure, according to a study published online Nov. 14 in The Lancet to coincide with presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2011, held from Nov. 12 to 16 in Orlando, Fla.
Roberto Bolli, M.D., from the University of Louisville in Kentucky, and colleagues investigated the safety and efficacy of treating 16 post-MI heart failure participants with CSCs, compared to seven untreated patients, in a two-stage trial. In stage A, participants with post-MI LV dysfunction (ejection fraction [EF], ≤40 percent) prior to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) were consecutively assigned to the treatment versus control groups. In stage B, participants were randomly assigned to the treatment versus to control groups. The trial was ongoing at the time of reporting.
The investigators found no CSC-related adverse effects. The LVEF in 14 patients, who were analyzed from the treatment group, increased from 30.3 to 38.5 percent before and four months post-infusion, respectively; but did not change significantly in control patients at four versus eight months post-CABG. Eight treated patients showed a more pronounced effect at one year, with an LVEF increase of 12.3 EF units from baseline. An average infarct size of 32.6 g was significantly reduced by 7.8 and 9.8 g at four months and one year, respectively, in seven treated patients who underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.
"The present results provide a strong rationale for further studies of CSC treatment in patients with severe heart failure secondary to ischemic cardiomyopathy," the authors write.
Copyright © 2011 HealthDay
Source not mentioned.. It must be adult.
If it were fetal , it would be in the headline.
The money word (in the original article at the source) is autologous — self donated. These ain’t embryonic.
I wasn’t able to view enough to find out how the autologous cells were isolated, or if they had been cultured to grow more of them.
If these cells are wandering around in the blood stream all the time, perhaps someday a treatment might be found to get them to go to the heart when and where they are needed, and skip the extraction (and culture?) steps.
They were cultured after biopsy according to the news. They didn't say how cardiomyocyte progenitors were isolated. Flow cytometry?
Stem cell clinics in other places than the US have been doing this sort of thing for individuals for quite a while, haven’t they?
bump
I believe they have been using other sources of adult stem cells, e.g. Wayne Newton. But I think this is the first published study using a control group, not a case report, using cardiomyocyte progenitors taken by biopsy and subsequently cultured and isolated, or vice versa, before being infused back into the same patients.
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