Amniotic Stem Cells Offer Hope Against Congenital Heart Defects

"Tissue engineering is very, very attractive because you can manufacture the valve exactly as you want to," said Dr. Valentin Fuster, director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, president of the World Heart Federation, and past president of the American Heart Association.

"I think this is going to have significant implications in the future," Fuster said.

Not all stem cell research presented at the meeting related to valves. Another group of researchers found that the fat tissue of older adults appears to be a good source for stem cells.

"A major problem with any type of cell for tissue engineering is you want to get a reliable source of cells," said Dr. Paul DiMuzio, an assistant professor of surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "They can be used from bone marrow but this source tends to decrease with age, making it a limited source of cells in the exact population you need the cells for."

In this study, DiMuzio and his team harvested stem cells from the adipose tissue of 49 patients undergoing elective vascular surgery. The number of stem cells obtained was roughly equivalent, regardless of the person's age, body-mass index or whether they had end-stage kidney disease or arterial disease. The one surprise was that patients with diabetes tended to have fewer stem cells available from fat, DiMuzio said. In fact, the number of stem cells available is remarkably constant in each decade of life, he noted.

"Age appeared to be not a big problem," he said.

Other related research presented in Chicago found that acute heart attack patients who were infused with bone marrow cells saw an improvement in heart function when compared with patients who received a placebo infusion. "Magnetic resonance imaging findings confirmed that bone marrow-derived progenitor cell therapy holds great promise for post-infarction heart failure," said study author Dr. Thorsten Dill, of the department of cardiology and cardiac imaging at Kerckhoff Heart Center in Bad Nauheim, Germany.

In other news, researchers in Japan reported that they successfully used rabbit cells to grow a heart-valve-shaped tissue inside the animal. And investigators at Johns Hopkins University have grown large numbers of stem cells taken from pig heart tissue, then used those cells to repair damage caused by laboratory-induced heart attacks. No overall improvements in heart function have yet been shown, the Hopkins authors cautioned.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on congenital heart defects in children.

SOURCES: Valentin Fuster, M.D., Ph.D., director, Cardiovascular Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, and president, World Heart Federation; Nov. 14, 2006, news conference with Simon P. Hoerstrup, M.D., Ph.D., professor, biomedical engineering, and director, cardiovascular research and division of regenerative medicine, University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland; Paul J. DiMuzio, M.D., assistant professor, surgery, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia; Thorsten Dill, M.D., department of cardiology and cardiac imaging, Kerckhoff Heart Center, Bad Nauheim, Germany