UK Stem Cell Foundation

Acute heart patients to receive own stem cells

Guardian Unlimited, 8 November 2006

Heart attack patients will be given a groundbreaking new treatment involving an injection of their own stem cells to attempt to repair the damage their hearts have suffered, it was announced today.

Fifty cardiac patients at two London hospitals will have the stem cells extracted from their bone marrow and injected into their hearts, if they suffer a heart attack.

The doctors involved in the clinical trials believe the treatment should delay or prevent the onset of heart failure. It is hoped that the stem cells, which have the ability to develop into a range of cells, will repair the damage to the heart muscle.

The research project, the first to be supported by the UK Stem Cell Foundation, is aimed at delaying or preventing the onset of heart failure, which can lead to a serious deterioration in quality of life and, sometimes, death.

Several animal studies and clinical trials in Europe have suggested that an infusion of bone marrow stem cells, within several days of a heart attack, can repair heart muscle and grow new blood vessels.

But the British trials, at the London Chest hospital and the Heart hospital, will be the first to test whether the treatment works within the critical five hours after an attack.

Around 300,000 people in the UK have a heart attack each year and nearly half die, according to NHS Direct. Half of those who die do so from cardiac arrest - when the heart stops completely - within three or four hours of the start of the attack.

Dr Anthony Mathur, consultant cardiologist at the London Chest hospital, part of Barts and the London NHS trust, said: "If we can demonstrate improvement in the quality of life of patients, then this will be a significant step forward in the treatment of heart disease.

"Because the stem cells are taken from the patient themselves, there are minimal ethical issues surrounding this procedure. There is also less likelihood of rejection complications."

Professor John Martin, the head of the Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine at University College hospital, London, said: "Previous studies in the heart have shown that stem cell delivery to the heart is safe. We will show whether it works in acute heart attack."

David Macauley, the chief executive of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, said: "This is the first known project of its type in the UK to combine stem cell delivery to the heart with primary angioplasty - where the blocked arteries in heart attack patients are opened as quickly as possible. It addresses one of the biggest killers in the UK."

The patients in the trail given the stems cells will be compared with another 50 given a "dummy" injection. Upon admission to hospital they will first undergo an angioplasty to open up blocked arteries. This involves inserting a thin, hollow, flexible tube, called a catheter, into a blood vessel in the groin or arm. A tiny balloon is then pushed through the catheter into the blocked coronary artery and inflated to restore the blood flow.

 

The UK Stem Cell Foundation, 20 Park Crescent, London W1B 1AL, Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7670 5370, info@ukscf.org