November 5, 2012 in Nation/World
Marilynn Marchione Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients own cells for helping restore hearttissue.
The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyones cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on handnow.
Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation.
The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the studys leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University ofMiami.
The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump bloodeffectively.
Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimores Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involvesurgery.
The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells fromstrangers.
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Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts - Mon, 05 Nov 2012 PST