Stem cell therapy in postinfarction chronic coronary heart disease
After acute myocardial infarction, bone-marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) improve cardiac function; it is conceivable, but not yet demonstrated, that BMDC therapy might also be useful in chronic infarction. We treated 18 consecutive patients who had chronic myocardial infarction (between 5 months and 8.5 years postinfarction) using intracoronary transplantation of autologous BMDCs and compared this group with a representative control group who did not receive cell therapy. After 3 months, infarct size in the transplantation group was reduced by 30% and both global left ventricular ejection fraction and infarction wall-movement velocity were increased significantly (15% and 57%, respectively), whereas in the control group no significant changes were observed. After transplantation of BMDCs, there was an 11% improvement in maximum oxygen uptake and a 15% increase in regional 18F-fluordeoxyglucose uptake into infarcted tissue, as determined by positron emission tomography. These results show that functional and metabolic regeneration of infarcted and chronically avital tissue can be achieved in humans using transplantation of bone-marrow-derived cells.