Free Republic

Latest data from small study suggests therapy could fight heart failure, but larger trials are needed ) -- Updated two-year results from a small trial using cardiac stem cells to repair damaged hearts suggest the treatment's healing effect persists.Patients with heart failure caused by prior heart attacks who got the treatment continue to see reductions in cardiac scar tissue, improvements in the heart's pumping ability and even a boost in their quality of life, researchers said.These improvements seem to be continuing as time goes on, suggesting that stem cell therapy's healing power hasn't diminished."Now we need to perform larger and...

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...

WASHINGTON, DC – Heart failure affects roughly six million Americans, yet treatment consists of either a heart transplant or the insertion of mechanical devices that assist the heart. This is unacceptable to Roberto Bolli, MD, Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Ky., which is why he is on a mission to make cardiac stem cell treatment an option for all who must cope with the limitations of a failing heart. Dr. Bolli is conducting the groundbreaking study, "Cardiac Stem Cell Infusion in Patients with Ischemic cardiOmyopathy (SCIPIO)," in which researchers at the...

An immediate early publication of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press, on Nov. 22, 2006 points to the possible existence of master cardiac stem cells with the capacity to produce all three major tissues of the mammalian heart. A companion Cell paper also published online reports the discovery of a second population of cardiac progenitors, which are capable of forming both cardiac muscle and the smooth muscle found in the heart's blood vessel walls.  Together with similar findings reported in the November issue of the journal Developmental Cell, also a Cell Press publication, the findings challenge the notion that...