Stem Cells for Heart Disease- How? What? When? Where?

The New York Times carried an article on a report from German researchers in the Journal of American Medical Association. It mentioned "the new treatment entailed injecting the heart attack patients with a hormone that induces the bone marrow to send blood-making cells out into the blood stream" as experiments with animals had suggested that blood-making cells would home in on damaged heart tissue, transform into heart muscles cells and rebuild the heart.

The results however, suggest that the "radical" new treatment (new to heart disease but not new to other diseases, will explain in next entry) was tested under rigorous conditions and was found to be "wholly ineffective". The concept that cells are able to home in on the degenerating tissue and elicit new growth seems plausible but for a few problems which I can think of here.

Firstly, the number of stem cells that are mobilized and leave the marrow constitute only a small percentage of the circulation. It would be a few times higher in concentration, but this may not be sufficient to initiate any migration of cells from the fast moving blood stream into the areas of damage.

Secondly, the area of damage may already have poor circulation, given that the "roads" that bring the cells to the site of injury are either congested or destroyed, this will further limit the number of stem cells that will reach the area to exert any form of effectiveness.

Thirdly, mobilized stem cells do not stay for long in the bloodstream and after stimulation has ended, stem cells home in the bone marrow to which they return or differentiate to other cells which are needed (presumably the cells will then have a slightly higher turnover rate). This homing behavior will also limit the stem cells in circulation and reduce the numbers of cells flowing near the site of damage.

In other published articles where signs of improvement after infusion of stem cells has been demonstrated, the stem cells are injected either into the vessel near the damaged area or directly into the damaged area itself. The cells are thought to migrate transendothelially into the damaged muscle from the vessel or act in coordination with the surrounding tissue to encourage angiogenesis (formation of new blood vessels).

StemLife has been able to successfully reproduce the result first shown by Japanese doctors for Peripheral Artery Disease and helped patients with foot ulcers who refused amputation. Furthermore, StemLife doctors have also seen improvements in patients who have resorted to stem cell therapy for heart failure due to a lack of other options- and have also been able to observe similar results to those already published in the US and other reknown heart institutes.

A lot more work needs to be done to understand exactly what processes take place and whether it can be extended to more patients with less severe symptoms. It would be wonderful to be able to use stem cells to slow down the wear and tear of the organs that we depend on the most.

I am most encouraged by the outcomes and our patients delight in their improved quality of life makes our work all the more exciting and worthwhile. In future entries, I shall describe what we have done in a bit more detail so check back for updates! :)