Patients' own stem cells to repair broken hearts
Surgeons in the UK are planning to use stem cells from patients' own bone marrow to repair the damage caused by heart attacks, in a trial that is the first of its kind in the world. When a heart attack strikes, the blood supply to part of the heart muscle is cut off, usually because the arteries have become clogged up with fatty material. Cells in the affected part of the heart die; this leaves a scar and reduces the ability of the heart to pump blood around the body. At the moment, coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty are used to restore the flow of blood to the heart muscle, but these techniques do not restore the viability of the damaged area. 'Current treatments aim to keep the patient alive with a heart that is working less efficiently than before the heart attack,' commented Dr Raimondo Ascione, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at the University of Bristol. 'Cardiac stem cell therapy aims to repair the damaged heart as it has the potential to replace the damaged tissue.' In the trial, 60 patients will have bone marrow harvested before undergoing coronary bypass surgery. During heart surgery, the surgeons will use a tried and tested technique to inject stem cells from the bone marrow into the patient's heart. To verify the effectiveness of the stem cell treatment, only half of the patients will receive stem cells; the other half will be injected with a placebo. Neither the patient nor the surgeon will know who has received stem cells and who has received the placebo. 'We have elected to use a very promising stem cell type selected from the patient's own bone marrow,' said Dr Ascione. 'This approach ensures no risk of rejection or infection. It also gets around the ethical issues that would result from use of stem cells from embryonic or foetal tissue.' 'We hope that this exciting Bristol project will provide information taking us a step nearer to the day when stem cells can be used routinely to help repair damaged hearts,' added Professor Jeremy Pearson of the British Heart Foundation, which is funding the research.
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