Stem cell treatment could repair heart damage

03-24-2012, 13h30

CHICAGO (AFP)

Patients with advanced heart disease who received an experimental stem cell therapy showed slight improvements in blood pumping but no change in most of their symptoms, US researchers said Saturday.

Study authors described the trial as the largest to date to examine stem cell therapy as a route to repairing the heart in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and left ventricular dysfunction.

Previous studies have established that the approach is safe in human patients, but none had examined how well it worked on a variety of heart ailments.

The clinical trial involved 92 patients, with an average age of 63, who were picked at random to get either a placebo or a series of injections of their own stem cells, taken from their bone marrow, into damaged areas of their hearts.

The patients -- 82 of whom were men -- all had chronic heart disease, along with either heart failure or angina or both, and their left ventricles were pumping at less than 45 percent of capacity.

None of the participants in the study were eligible for revascularization surgery, such as coronary bypass to restore blood flow, because their heart disease was so advanced.

Those who received the stem cell therapy saw a small but significant boost in the heart's ability to pump blood, measuring the increase from the heart's main pumping chamber at 2.7 percent more than placebo patients.

The treatment worked best in the youngest patients, those under 62, according to the analysis which was done after six months of treatment.

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Stem cell treatment could repair heart damage