PET PET
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
Become a Friend Donate
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements
PETBioNewsNewsHeart attack scars healed in stem cell safety trial

BioNews

Heart attack scars healed in stem cell safety trial

Published 17 February 2012 posted in News and appears in BioNews 645

Author

Cathy Holding

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).

A stem cell-based therapy aiming to reverse the damage caused by heart attacks has shown positive results in an early clinical trial...

A stem cell-based therapy aiming to reverse the damage caused by heart attacks has shown positive results in an early clinical trial.

Seventeen heart attack patients were treated with an infusion of cardiac stem cells grown from their own heart cells and their hearts regrew healthy muscle. The scars from the attack shrank significantly in size. Eight patients served as controls in the study, receiving conventional medical care.

As a phase I trial, the principal aim of the study was to assess the safety of the treatment. It was hoped that, as the cells involved come from a person's own body, there would be no risk of rejection and they would be more likely to form heart tissue. The trial team report that the increases in viable heart tissue were 'unprecedented' and that the therapy should now be moved into phase II trials.

'This has never been accomplished before, despite a decade of cell therapy trials for patients with heart attacks', said Dr Eduardo Marbán, the director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in the US, who led the study. 'Now we have done it. The effects are substantial, and surprisingly larger in humans than they were in animal tests'.

In the procedure, doctors used a catheter inserted into a vein in the patient's neck to take a small sample of heart tissue from patients about a month after they had had a heart attack. These heart cells are then grown into specialised cardiac stem cells. Up to 25 million of these are then injected into the patient's coronary arteries.

The scar tissue that the procedure aims to repair is formed in the aftermath of a heart attack. Although it represents part of the healing process, it does not beat and reduces the heart's ability to pump blood around the body. Until just a few years ago, many scientists and physicians believed that heart muscle damaged after a heart attack could not be repaired or replaced.

Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the study, said that it was 'early days' for this therapy but added that 'it could be great news for heart attack patients who face the debilitating symptoms of heart failure'.

The study is available on The Lancet's website and will be published in a future issue of the journal's print edition.

Related Articles

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
25 October 2016 • 2 minutes read

Stem cells repair damaged heart muscle in monkeys

by Dr Jane Currie

Researchers in Japan have used stem cells from a matched donor to repair damaged heart muscle in macaque monkeys...

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
12 May 2014 • 2 minutes read

Can stem cells 'mend broken hearts'? Studies raise both hope and doubt

by Dr Greg Ball

Two major reviews of clinical trials using stem cells to treat advanced heart disease have found a positive effect of the stem cell treatment, but caution against overstating this effect until more trials are carried out...

Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the output from a DNA sequencing machine.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the sequencing output from an automated DNA sequencing machine.
News
28 February 2013 • 2 minutes read

Heart failure patients' skin cells turned into beating heart muscle

by Helen Brooks

For the first time, scientists have managed to turn heart attack patients' skin cells into healthy beating heart cells in the lab...

Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the output from a DNA sequencing machine.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the sequencing output from an automated DNA sequencing machine.
News
27 February 2013 • 1 minute read

Heart scar tissue repaired without stem cells

by Helen Brooks

Scar tissue formed after a heart attack could be repaired without the use of stem cells, according to US scientists...

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
31 January 2013 • 2 minutes read

Pivotal heart disease stem cell trial launched

by Cathy Holding

A major clinical trial to investigate a stem cell treatment for chronic ischemic heart disease (IHD) — a leading cause of death around the world — has begun in the US...

Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
CC BY 4.0
Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
News
17 January 2013 • 2 minutes read

Mouse fetal stem cells mend mum's broken heart

by Dr Sophie Pryor

Mouse fetal stem cells can travel from the placenta to heal their mother's damaged heart, US scientists have found. The discovery may explain why some women who suffer heart failure during or shortly after pregnancy recover faster, and offers hope for new treatment methods using human fetal stem cells...

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
10 January 2013 • 2 minutes read

Pioneering clinical trial using cardiac stem cells shows early promise

by Vicki Kay

The world's first clinical trial using patients' own cardiac stem cells to repair heart damage has produced surprising results. The preliminary trial was designed simply to test the safety of the procedure, but doctors observed an unexpected improvement in heart function in patients receiving the treatment...

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
22 November 2012 • 2 minutes read

A stem cell injection to mend a broken heart?

by Rosie Beauchamp

An Australian company has announced it has received regulatory approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to begin phase II trials for its cardiovascular stem cell treatment, Revascor....

Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
CC BY 4.0
Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
News
12 November 2012 • 2 minutes read

Stem cells used to successfully treat damaged heart muscle in mice

by Dr Sophie Pryor

A naturally occurring protein can activate stem cells in mouse hearts, producing new muscle cells to replace the tissue damaged by a heart attack, UK scientists have found...

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
23 October 2009 • 2 minutes read

Scientists grow beating heart muscle tissue

by Dr Antony Starza-Allen

A team of Harvard scientists has created 'beating' heart muscle using mouse embryonic stem cells. The research, published last week in the journal Science, means that scientists are one step closer to creating effective stem cell-based techniques to repair damage following heart attacks....

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« First clinical trial of human embryonic stem cells gets go-ahead

Data-Label The UK's Leading Supplier Of Medical Labels & Asset Labels

RetiringDentist.co.uk The UK's Leading M&A Company.
easyfundraising
amazon

This month in BioNews

  • Popular
  • Recent
13 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

Drop in diversity of blood stem cells leads to old-age health issues

4 July 2022 • 2 minutes read

Shorter IVF protocol reduces risk of OHSS

4 July 2022 • 2 minutes read

USA scrambles to understand implications of Roe v Wade on fertility industry

4 July 2022 • 2 minutes read

Genetic and epigenetic causes of IVF embryo arrest discovered

4 July 2022 • 2 minutes read

Dutch donor-conceived people seek answers

4 July 2022 • 2 minutes read

Genetic variant increases Alzheimer's risk, especially in women

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
PET PET

PET is an independent charity that improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Navigation

  • About Us
  • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • BioNews
  • Events
  • Engagement
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us

BioNews

  • News
  • Comment
  • Reviews
  • Elsewhere
  • Topics
  • Glossary
  • Newsletters

Other

  • My Account
  • Subscribe

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856