Study Will Test Stem Cell Therapy on Human Hearts

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Associated Press
Tuesday, July 26, 2005

A clinical trial to test the safety of treating heart attack damage with stem cells is about to get underway, after a study showed that the therapy helped in pigs.

Two patients have been enrolled so far at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and a total of 48 are expected to take part across the country, said Joshua M. Hare, who is leading the study.

The process uses adult stem cells taken from bone marrow. These mesenchymal cells have been shown to give rise to a variety of cell types. Although they do not have the potential to develop into as many cell types as embryonic stem cells, using them avoids the controversy over taking cells from a human embryo.

In tests in pigs, stem cells from one pig's bone marrow were injected into another animal's damaged heart. After two months, the stem cells had helped restore heart function and repaired damaged heart muscle by 50 to 75 percent.

Those results are reported in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The planned tests are a Phase I trial, meaning the goal is to ensure that the procedure is safe in humans.