It took eight years of preparation to arrive at this result : The first stem cell transplant into the heart of a patient with severe heart failure is a success. This world first took place in France on October 21, 2014, thanks to the joint work of surgeons from the Georges Pompidou European Hospital and the cell and tissue biotherapies department of Saint Louis Hospital.
The 68-year-old patient underwent a human embryonic stem cell transplant during surgery. bypass surgery, reports the agency Reuters. The transplant only lasted about ten minutes. “It is a simple, fast and reproducible operation by all cardiac surgeons”, explains Professor Philippe Menasché, coordinator of the team. The patient’s state of health improved markedly and, according to the surgeon, she would have returned to a normal life.
The President of the Republic, François Hollande, congratulated all the medical and scientific teams involved in this work, “on the quality of French medicine and research,” reveals Reuters. But despite these encouraging results, the researchers remain cautious: this is only a single case, only three months ago, while the clinical trial involves six patients in total. This technique will therefore be tested on other patients, before more precise conclusions can be drawn.
