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Study: Stem Cells Mend Broken Hearts?

Posted on: Wednesday, 28 March 2007, 18:00 CDT

Patients at 10 U.S. heart centers who had adult stem cell therapy Provacel after a heart attack had fewer arrhythmias and better overall health.

So concludes a preliminary analysis of an ongoing, two-year trial led by Gary Schaer, head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center.

The study is following 53 people who received an intravenous infusion of either Provacel -- made by Osiris Therapeutics in Baltimore -- or placebo within 10 days of having a heart attack.

At the six-month mark, patients who received Provacel had experienced 75 percent fewer episodes of cardiac arrhythmia than placebo patients, and 42 percent reported significant improvements in heart, lung, and overall functioning, compared to 11 percent of the control group.

Provacel uses mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) from healthy, adult volunteer bone marrow donors. Since the MSCs are at an early stage of development when harvested, they do not trigger an immune response in the recipient and do not need to be tissue-matched, researchers noted.

A single donation can be expanded to treat thousands of patients, and the cells can be frozen and stored for years without damage, they added. In addition, the treatment is delivered through an intravenous apparatus, instead of requiring direct introduction into damaged tissue like other cardiac stem cell therapies, which requires catheterization or open surgical procedures.

A report on the Provacel study was presented thsi week at the American College of Cardiology's Innovation in Intervention Summit in New Orleans.

Source: United Press International

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