CELL TRANSPLANTATION COULD RESTORE CARDIAC FUNCTION AFTER HEART ATTACK (p 491)February 05, 2003Issue 8 February 2003 Embargoed 0001 h (London time) 7 February 2003 French authors of a research letter in this week's issue of THE LANCET describe the preliminary success of transplanting muscle stem-cells from the thigh to the heart to restore damaged cardiac tissue after heart attack. The procedure was done in a 72-year-old man and resulted in improved left-ventricular and overall heart function. After the man's death 18 months later, the grafted post-infarction scar showed that the undifferentiated stem cells transplanted from his leg had evolved into well developed skeletal myotubes with a preserved contractile structure. Lead author Albert Hage'ge from Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, comments: "Irrespective of the mechanism, these results lend support to the usefulness of myoblast therapy in a clinical setting, suggest that grafts have long-term viability, that there is formation of non-degenerated functional myotubes, and a phenotypic switch towards slow-twitch fibres that might allow them to sustain a cardiac workload over time." | |||||||||||||||||||||
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