A study published by The Lancet has shown that cardiac stem cell infusion in patients who have suffered heart attacks, can help regenerate heart muscle. The research was conducted by Eduardo Marban, Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles and colleagues.


The study evaluated 25 patients at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, with an average age of 53, and all had suffered a heart attack. Of these, 8 received standard care, while 17 received infusions of stem cells derived from cardio sphere (CDC) created special cardiac stem cells from the patient’s own cardiac tissue.

The procedure was minimally invasive, and consisted of removing pieces of living muscle of the heart – the size of a raisin – using a catheter with local anesthesia, the tissue was then used to create the supply of cardiac stem cells.

Each patient received an infusion of between 12 and 25 million of their own stem cells for a second procedure, minimally invasive. Patients who received the infusion of stem cells shrink saw his scar in between 24% and 12%, on average, while controls did not observe any reduction in the size of the scar. Changes in end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume and ejection fraction of left ventricle did not differ between groups at 6 months.

Four patients (24%) in the stem cell group were serious adverse events, compared with the control group (13%), although all four events in the group of stem cells, only one was related to treatment.

According to the authors, “This finding challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, the heart scarring is permanent and that, once lost, health, heart muscle can not be recovered. In addition, we showed that intracoronary infusion of CDC, after myocardial infarction, is secure, ensuring the expansion of this type of treatment to the phase 2 study. ”

In a related commentary, Dr. Chung-Wah Siu, and Professor Hung-Fat Tse, School of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, adding that “these findings suggest that this therapeutic approach is feasible and has the potential to provide a treatment strategy for cardiac regeneration after myocardial infarction. ”