The conclusions of a clinical study showed interesting results in the use of stem cells from the umbilical cord in heart failure.
Stem cells extracted from blood or bone marrow have been used to repair the hearts of people with heart failure. In 2015, a French team was the first to perform a transplant, with embryonic stem cells.
This time, a Chilean team used stem cells from umbilical cord blood. In an article published in the journal Traffic Research, the researchers announce promising results.
The transplant would indeed have allowed an improvement in the performance of the heart muscle in the year following the treatment. An improvement significant enough to restore a better quality of life in patients.
Gain of 7%
Heart failure is characterized by a progressive inability of the muscle to perform its role as a pump to propel blood through the body. The organs no longer receive enough oxygen during exercise, thus prompting the heart to accelerate, which causes short-term shortness of breath and long-term worsening of the disease. The insufficiency then manifests itself at rest.
The effectiveness of stem cells from the umbilical cord had never before been tested to treat it. For this clinical trial, the Chilean researchers recruited 30 patients aged 18 to 75, with heart failure on balanced treatment. Some received intravenous stem cell treatment, and others a placebo.
In people treated with cell therapy, the ejection fraction, representative of heart contraction, increased by an average of 7% after one year.
Avoid invasive procedures
“These results are encouraging, as they could open the way to a non-invasive and promising therapy for patients whose chances are low,” said Dr. Fernando Figueroa, professor of medicine at the University of the Andes (Chile).
For now, standard drug treatments are finally showing their limits, and patients often have to go through more serious interventions: installation of mechanical assistance, or heart transplantation.
Few cons
The technique using stem cells from the umbilical cord also has some significant advantages. The transplant does not appear to be associated with adverse effects: typical immune complications of patients undergoing organ transplantation or blood transfusions were not observed in the clinical trial.
Another advantage: unlike bone marrow, for example, cord blood is relatively accessible: it is available in quantity. Its collection does not pose the ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cells either.
Heart failure affects nearly 40 million people worldwide. And, despite current treatments, those diagnosed die within 5 years, according to Dr. Figueroa.
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