Ok, last one - but I just hope this helps inform those who need the information.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/03/30/health.heart.cells.reut/index.html
Stem cells may revolutionize heart-attack therapy
March 30, 2001
Web posted at: 7:29 PM EST (0029 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Stem cells from mouse bone marrow turned into
functioning heart muscle cells after being injected into a damaged mouse heart,
researchers said Friday, offering hope that doctors soon may be able to reverse
damage caused by heart attacks in people.
The study involved the use of adult stem cells -- avoiding the ethical storm
swirling around the use of stem cells from embryos -- and demonstrated that
stem cells can help repair muscle killed in heart attacks.
This, and another study involving rats given adult human stem cells, also pointed
the way to a possible revolution in the treatment of heart attacks, a top cause of
death in the industrialized world.
Dr. Piero Anversa of New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, who
helped lead the mouse study, said in an interview that researchers would try the
technique on rhesus monkeys starting within two or three months, and, if all
went well, clinical trials on people could begin in three years.
In the second study, researchers at Columbia University College of Physicians
and Surgeons used adult human stem cells to spur new blood vessel development
in heart tissue in rats after a heart attack, preventing the tissue starvation and
death that typically results in heart failure.
The researchers injected a type of stem cell present in adult human bone marrow
into rats that had suffered heart attacks two days earlier. The cells migrated
exclusively to the damaged heart tissue, where they spurred the formation of
new blood vessels, the researchers reported.
Dr. Silviu Itescu, who led the study appearing in the journal Nature Medicine,
said in an interview: "There's very little downside to trying this in humans. Stem
cell therapy is an accepted therapeutic protocol already. It's not a big leap to say
that we would hope to have a clinical protocol in place within 12 months."
Master cells
Stem cells are master cells that, with chemical prompting, can develop into
different types of cells, such as blood, brain and bone cells. Stems cells can
come from adult tissue -- as was the case in these studies -- as well as from the
cells of aborted fetuses and from blood cells taken from umbilical cords.
Researchers hope the cells one day can help provide treatments for a variety of
human diseases.
Bone marrow cells may be an ideal solution to the problem of repairing damaged
hearts, researchers said, noting that they give rise to both heart muscle and blood
vessels and can be harvested from the patient to prevent rejection.
The mouse study showed the enormous potential of adult stem cells to
differentiate into other cell types and repair a damaged organ, a quality
commonly attributed to embryonic stem cells, Anversa said. This may allow
doctors to use a patient's own stem cells in heart attack treatment, he said.
The study by Anversa and other researchers at New York Medical College and
the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National
Institutes of Health appeared in the journal Nature.
About 1.1 million Americans will suffer a heart attack this year, with 450,000
dying. A heart attack occurs when the coronary arteries that carry blood to the
heart muscles become blocked. The interruption in the blood supply suffocates
the heart muscle cells below the blockage, substantially reducing the heart's
ability to pump blood. If more than 40 percent of the left ventricle -- the main
pumping chamber -- is damaged, the patient generally dies.
Male stem cells, female heart
Researchers led by Anversa and Dr. Donald Orlic of NHGRI isolated bone
marrow stem cells from male mice. The researchers transplanted stem cells
from male mice into female hearts so they could show that any new heart
muscle had come from donor cells. After inducing a heart attack in the female
mice, the researchers injected the stem cells into the heart muscle next to the
damaged tissue.
Over the next seven to 11 days, the stem cells began to multiply and transform
themselves into heart muscle cells and migrated into the damaged area, the study
found. After about nine days, the newly formed heart muscle cells occupied
more than two thirds of the damaged portion of the heart. The stem cells also
began producing smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells that organized
themselves into new blood vessels.
"This study offers hope that we might one day be able to actually reverse the
damage caused by a heart attack," said Francis Collins, an NHGRI research
division director.
But the treatment worked in only 12 of 30 mice, perhaps due to the difficulty of
injecting stem cells into a heart beating 600 times per minute, researchers said
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