A daily cocktail of heart medications could soon be a thing of the past as new research reveals evidence that stem cells have the potential to cure chronic heart failure.
Findings from a phase II clinical trial showed that ixmyelocel-T, refined therapy that harvests specific stem cells from patients' own bone marrow, significantly reduced heart complications in patients suffering severe heart failure compared to control counterparts.
Lead researcher Amit Patel of the University of Utah School of Medicine said that his study successfully put theory into practice by showing that stem cells really can help treat heart patients.
"This is the first trial of cell therapy showing that it can have a meaningful impact on the lives of patients with heart failure," explained Patel. "For the last 15 years, everyone has been talking about cell therapy and what it can do. These results suggest that it really works."
The latest study involved 109 ischemic cardiomyopathy patients who were followed over a 12-month period. Ischemic cardiomyopathy occurs when the heart muscles, particularly the main heart muscle, the left ventricle, is weakened as a result of heart attacks, narrowing of the arteries or coronary heart disease. For the study, 58 patients received the stem cell therapy and 51 received a placebo.
The stem cell treatment ixmyelocel-T works by collecting bone marrow samples from patients. The samples are then sent to a laboratory where certain cells are extracted and placed into an bioreactor that helps multiply and enhance the quality of the collected stem cells. The stem cells are then taken out after two weeks and injected into the heart muscles via a catheter, according to researchers.
"Our intent is to increase the number of functioning cells in the heart muscle, which, in turn, strengthen the heart and result in alleviating or slowing the advance of severe heart failure," said Dr. Timothy D. Henry, co-author of the study and director of the Cardiology Division at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute.
The latest findings revealed that the group of patients who received the stem cell therapy had 37 percent lower rates of death, hospitalizations and worsening of cardiac symptoms compared to those on the placebo treatment.
Study results revealed that 3.4 percent of participants who received the stem cell treatment died during the study compared to 13.7 percent of those who received the placebo. Further analysis also revealed that 37.9 percent of patients who received the stem cell treatment were hospitalized with heart problems during the study compared to 49 percent of patients in the placebo group.
"This is an important step forward for heart patients in particular and for stem cell medicine in general," Henry concluded. "The results indicate that stem cells could be ushering in a bright new era in heart failure treatments."
Other experts agree that stem cells have a future in heart therapy, but they note that more research is needed.
"The study is very exciting because for the first time it showed a physical impact on clinical events, and in this case that was mortality and rehospitalization for heart failure," wrote Dr. Thomas Povsic, an interventional cardiologist and associate professor of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, according to an accompanying editorial.
"Although the study in The Lancet is very encouraging, it's still a relatively small study by cardiovascular standards. In heart disease we typically study hundreds to thousands of patients," he added.
The latest findings were published in the journal The Lancet.
