Stem cell therapy not effective in heart damage

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Therapy with bone marrow stem cells did not improve cardiac function after heart attack.
There has been hope that stem cells can help repair the damage to heart tissue which accompanies a heart attack. A team at the Technical University of Munich now reports on a clinical trial of stem cell therapy in this context. They used a substance called granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), which guides the stem cells to carry out tissue repair.

The group of 114 patients, who had had a heart attack, received cells with and without G-CSF. Treatment with the growth factor did mobilize the stem cells, as expected. But it did not seem to repair cardiac tissue damage or to improve cardiac functioning. The results represent a setback for stem cell therapy but there may still be scope for this approach. Further trials may help reveal the conditions under which stem cells can be used to repair damaged tissue after a heart attack.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association 1st March 2006 Volume 295 pages 1003-1010