Heart disorder is the leading cause of death in the US for each woman and man. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 735,00 Americans have a coronary heart attack every year, and 610,000 die of coronary heart disease. Those who have with heart attacks continue to be at extreme risk for heart failure. During a heart attack, the network of blood vessels that delivers blood to the heart, called the coronary arteries, is blocked because of the buildup of LDL cholesterol and fatty deposits. Blood can’t go with the flow through to the coronary heart, which means it doesn’t get the oxygen and nutrients it needs, causing tissue to die. Heart assault survivors are therefore left with a weaker heart, doing everyday duties like lifting objects or climbing stairs ha, rd or maybe risky. Restoring damaged heart tissue has proved difficult, if not impossible; however, a research crew from Imperial College London has a new tool they hope might be able to heal wounded hearts.
The crew advanced thumb-sized patches of coronary heart tissue, approximately three centimeters in length and containing up to 50 million human stem cells. The patches are sewn onto the broken place of the heart to help pump blood and launch chemical compounds to stimulate restoration and regeneration. They programmed the stem cells to mature into running coronary heart muscle or cardiac progenitor cells. The group presented its studies at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) Conference in Manchester this week.
Using stem cells to deal with weakened coronary heart muscle isn’t a new idea. But many existing methods injected stem cells at once into damaged tissue, and without a ‘scaffold’ to preserve them in place, the cells would clear out of the heart earlier than achieving great tissue repair. The team tested the patches in rabbits, finding that four weeks after implanting a patch, the hearts’ left ventricles (the chamber that pumps blood to the frame via the aorta) recovered without developing unusual heart rhythms. They also discovered that blood vessels from the recipient’s hearts grew into the patches and helped nourish them, a critical step for integration. The patches started to beat spontaneously after simply 3 days, and within one month started to imitate mature heart tissue.
The subsequent step is to test the safety of the patches via medical trials, then try and use them to restore human hearts. “One day, we hope to add heart patches to the treatments that doctors can routinely offer human beings after a coronary heart attack,” said Dr. Richard Jabbour, who performed the studies. “We may want to prescribe this type of patch alongside drugs for a person with heart failure, which you could take from a shelf and implant immediately into a person.” Professor Metin Avkiran, associate scientific director at the British Heart Foundation, which funded the studies, added, “This is a high example of world-leading studies that can mend broken hearts and remodel lives around the globe. If clinical trials can show the blessings of these heart patches in humans after a heart attack, it would be a fantastic bounce forward for the regenerative medicinal drug.”
