Bristol Cardiac Team Uses Stem Cells for Heart

Articles from or about Bristol always brings with them a sense of nostalgia for me and its been a while since the last opportunity to visit (StemLife keeps me in Asia, mostly).

Anyway, back to the stem cell news. I was very pleased to see that the Bristol cardiac team based at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and at the University will in August start a stem cell program which involves the injection of autologous (patient's own) bone marrow stem cells into the affected heart during routine coronary bypass surgery. The surgeons, led by Dr. Raimondo Ascione, believe that stem cells can assist in the healing process post surgery, reducing scarring and thereby improving the heart's pumping action. Follow-up time of the patients is stated to be six months, which I think is a perfectly reasonable length of time (based on our experience here).

The work is funded by the British Heart Foundation and amounts to GBP 210,000 (approximately 1,455,070 RM).


The article describes why the surgical team acknowledges the usefulness of stem cells:

In a heart attack, blocked blood vessels starve the heart's muscle of oxygen and cells in that part of the heart die, leaving scarring.

The scarred heart is then less able to pump blood around the body and can lead to heart failure.

While the blood supply to the heart can be improved with coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty (mechanical stretching of the heart blood vessels), these techniques do not restore the viability and function of the area already damaged.

And scarring can cause further complications - a fifth of patients develop a dangerous thinning of the walls of the heart within six months of bypass surgery.

The patients who will be selected are those who suffered a heart attack between 10 days to three months ago, and half of them will receive the stem cells, while the other half will receive a dummy injection.


Are there any ethical issues?

Dr. Ascione says that using the patient's own stem cells will not only avoid the risk of rejection and infection, but also get round any ethical issues sometimes associated with embryonic cells or foetal tissue (which is hotly debated). It was also great that Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, is also looking forward to stem cells being used routinely in the repair of damaged hearts.


At StemLife, we also offer adult-derived stem cell therapies for patients with ischemic heart disease. Not all patients are eligible for the program however, so please check with us to see if you're a suitable candidate.