Experiment uses patients' cells to heal heart
Last Updated Mon, 10 Nov 2003 22:05:56

ORLANDO, FLA. - Doctors may some day be able to use patients' own stem cells to rejuvenate their hearts after a heart attack.

Scientists from around the world are at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Fla., this week to discuss the possibilities of reversing some of the damage caused by heart attacks.

Many of the studies looked at stem cells, one of the body's most versatile cells. Researchers wanted to see if the cells could help regenerate damaged heart muscle.

Dentist Samuel Cohen was one of the study participants. He had three heart attacks in two years, one right after the other. The attacks left his heart weak and barely able to pump blood through his body.

Doctors in Arizona extracted stem cells from Cohen's thigh muscles, called myoblasts, and grew them in a laboratory.

During bypass surgery, doctors injected 300 million of Cohen's own muscle cells directly into the damaged area of his heart.

Within a few months, Cohen's heart was beating efficiently and he could do exercise. "To be able to generate new heart muscle from dead heart muscle, that's just incredible," he said.

Researchers still need to make sure the results last and can be repeated in larger studies. The Arizona team has done the procedure on 18 patients who've been monitored for less than two years, and they want to improve the technique.

"Hopefully, not in the distant future, we won't do this with opening the chest," said Dr. Edward Diethrich of the Arizona Heart Institute. "We'll be able to do the same thing with catheter technology like we do with an angiogram."

Researchers say the use of stem cells for repairing damaged hearts is exciting. "The whole concept of repairing scar tissue is novel," said Dr. Ted Ruddy of the Ottawa Heart Institute. "No other approaches work."

On Tuesday, a team of researchers from Ottawa will present their small study on stem cell therapy.

Although stem cell research holds great potential, it's still years away from helping the almost 12,000 Canadians who die of heart attacks every year.

Written by CBC News Online staff