Patients with end-stage heart failure treated with cell therapy have a 37% reduced risk of having a heart attack.
In a few years, failing hearts could be fixed with cell therapy. The implantation of stem cells in patients with heart failure is indeed very promising, according to work presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cardiology in early April and published in the scientific journal The Lancet.
“Over the past 15 years, everyone has been talking about cell therapy and what you can do with it. These results suggest that this treatment really works, ”said Amit Patel, lead author of this study and director of the Regenerative Medicine for Heart Disease Unit at the University of Utah School of Medicine ( United States).
This cell therapy is based on the use of mesenchymal stem cells present in particular in the bone marrow. They can give rise to cartilage cells, muscle cells or heart cells. The researchers then put them in culture so that they multiply. These cells were taken from 109 patients with end-stage heart failure. In the latter, drug therapies have all failed. Their only option is a heart transplant or implantation of a tiny defibrillator.
Less heart attacks
To assess the effectiveness of these stem cells, the researchers implanted them in around fifty patients. The other half received a placebo. Neither the doctors nor the patients knew what treatment had been given. The patients were then examined one month after the operation. Then every 3 months for a year.
At the end of this follow-up, heart attacks, the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by heart failure decreased by 37% in the patients who received an injection of stem cells. The results do not reveal the benefits of this therapy beyond one year. Furthermore, this phase 2 clinical trial does not show any improvement in cardiac function in patients treated with cell therapy.
Nevertheless, these results are positive and encouraging according to the researchers. “This is the first clinical trial showing that cell therapy can have an impact on the lives of patients,” said the lead author. This work will continue with a larger number of patients.
France at the forefront
In France, the treatment of heart failure by cell therapy is also under development. Prof. Menasché’s team, in collaboration with the cell therapy unit at Saint-Louis hospital, achieved a world first in 2014: implanting cardiac stem cells, derived from embryonic stem cells, in a 68-year-old woman. suffering from severe heart failure. For the time being, French doctors have not commented on the effectiveness of the treatment, but they have shown that the technique was feasible, and the safety objective achieved.
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