For the first time researchers claim that stem cells taken from patient’s own heart valve have been used to mend damaged heart tissue. The research was designed to check the safety of the new process in addition to that improvement in capability of the heart to pump blood was also informed.
In preliminary trial fourteen patients was given the treatment those who suffered heart failure and who were having heart bypass surgery. During the surgery, a piece of heart tissue, from the right atrial appendage, was taken. At the same time as the patient was being sewn up, researchers segregated cardiac stem cells from the sample.
Then these cardiac stem cells were cultured until they had about two million stem cells for each patient. After about one hundred days these cells were injected to the patient. Then doctors gauged how capably the heart was pumping the blood using the left ventricle ejection fraction and what percentage of blood was leaving one of the main chambers of heart with every beat.
Researchers found that the percent of blood leaving heart’s chamber with every beat increased from thirty and half percent at the beginning of the study to thirty-eight and half percent four months after the treatment. This is the first reported case of cardiac stem cells being used as a treatment in people, subsequent to previous studies had shown benefits in animals. The study was published in the Lancet.
According to Dr Roberto Bolli, one of the researchers from the University of Louisville, they believe these findings are very significant. The results of study indicate that cardiac stem cells can markedly improve the contractile function of the heart. Stem cells taken from the heart might be more useful because their natural function is to replace the cells that continuously die in the heart due to wear and tear.
This is positive, but the critical next steps are to see whether this improvement is confirmed in the final completed trial, and to understand if the cells are actually replacing damaged heart cells or are secreting molecules that are helping to heal the heart, stated Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation.
source : www.bbc.co.uk/news