For the first time, stem cells taken from a patient’s heart were used to repair their heart damage. The testing has been successful in animals and is not officially successful in humans. 14 people were involved in the trial and 7 were not given stem cells and they did not see an increase in ejection fraction. The patients who underwent this procedure were in heart failure and having a bypass finished. During the operation the doctors took a portion of heart tissue and secluded the stem cells from that sample. After 100 days the stem cells were injected back into the patient’s heart and the pumping ability was monitored for 4 months. After those 4 months the hearts ability to pump increased by 8%. Giving the patients with heart troubles their own stem cells, they are improving their hearts ability to contract. Doctors said that by increasing the ability to contract does not change the person’s survival rate or life quality. However, the doctor’s plan on continuing this study by 2012 and by then they will possibly receive enough results to help them with actually improving survival rate and quality of life. Other studies are taking place dealing with using the patient’s own bone marrow are well. The bone marrow stem cells are being placed
within the patient only 6 hours after they experience a heart attack. The next process come from testing this method via trials to see if the stem cells are actually repairing the damaged heart cells or just helping the heart heal quicker.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15693507
1 comment:
Wow, cells to repair damage in your heart. This is excellent research and development that scientists are seeing will change the future of tomorrow. If they can get it to work for humans this will be a giant leap for man kind.
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