First heart attack damage can now be reversed with stem cell therapy.
An intravenous method of injecting stem cells into patients who had experienced heart attacks within the previous 10 days suggested that this method works to repair — not just manage – heart damage, a recent study found.
The new results are a milestone in stem cell research, and for patients, said Jeffrey Karp, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, who runs a stem cell biology lab at Harvard University. He was not involved in the study.
“Many patients who have a heart attack will go on to suffer heart failure,” he said. “It’s imperative to try and fix the root of the problem as quickly as possible.”
“We’re looking on the time frame here of five years, in the best-case scenario, to have approved cardiac stem cell therapies,” Hare said.
Coronary heart disease, which causes heart attacks and angina — chest pain resulting from the heart not getting enough blood — is the leading cause of death in the United States, with nearly 450,000 in 2005, according to the American Heart Association. About 1.1 million people have attacks occur in the United States each year, according to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
The particular kind of cells used in this research is called mesenchymal stem cells, and come from adults, not embryos.
The researchers are using a mesenchymal stem cell therapy that is marketed by Osiris Therapeutics Inc. under the name Prochymal. The drug, which consists of stem cells from donor bone marrow, gets injected into the vein. The cells then travel through the bloodstream and take up residence in the heart. The stem cells reduce the amount of scar tissue and increase the pumping strength of the heart in heart attack patients. To a limited extent, they also grow new heart muscle.
In this trial, patients’ doses ranged from 35 million cells to 350 million cells. There was no change or increase in side effects in treatments getting higher doses of cells, but it seemed that the treatment was more effective — at least in terms of reducing electrical problems — in the high dose group, he said.
“Mesenchymal stem cells are poised to really be the next major success in cell therapy that could be used to treat tens of thousands of patients,” he said.
This method of intravenous injection means that the procedure theoretically could be performed in a doctor’s office or clinic, increasing the accessibility to patients.