Injections To Replace Heart Surgery? 56
chareverie writes "Researchers at Harvard University have been working towards a goal of replacing some types of heart surgery with injections of cells that would grow into blood vessels for damaged hearts. The cells that would be used are progenitor cells obtained from the blood or bone marrow, as opposed to stem cells that are obtained from human embryos. The research team was successful with their tests on growing heart blood vessels in mice. Joyce Bishoff, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and senior author of the report, says, 'Our next goal down the line is to use them in humans.' She also notes that more studies need to be done on animals to see how these cells would react and behave with other types of tissues. A similar human experiment was done two years ago in Germany, during which a few people from a group of 75 heart attack victims were given injections of progenitor cells from their own bone marrow or blood. The report concluded that there were improved heart functions."
Reader w1z4rd points out related coverage with some more information at BBC News.
Re:What if you're afraid of shots? (Score:3, Informative)
It's called needlephobia and there are solutions [bioject.com] to it
Re:What if you're afraid of shots? (Score:2, Informative)
Stem cells have been used before for heart surgery (Score:5, Informative)
The word you're looking for to describe those cells is stem cells. But it wasn't the poster's fault. The poorly written article makes the same mistake.
Don Ho [wikipedia.org] had this surgery done where his own stem cells, extracted from his blood, were injected into his heart. He died soon after but his surgeon claims that the surgery was so successful that Don didn't recover fully before resuming touring and put too much strain on his heart and died.
Re:Progenitor? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What if you're afraid of shots? (Score:3, Informative)
That's a syringe to draw blood from an existing vascular access line, which would have to be put in place using a needle.
Previous Study had like a 3% improvement (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Stem cells have been used before for heart surg (Score:4, Informative)
The cells that would be used are progenitor cells obtained from the blood or bone marrow,...
The word you're looking for to describe those cells is stem cells. But it wasn't the poster's fault. The poorly written article makes the same mistake.
Well, actually, they were progenitor cells, or at least that's what the investigators called them. http://americanheart.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=471 [mediaroom.com]
Stem cells are able to differentiate along different pathways, to become the cells that form tissues, such as the lining and structural tissues used to form blood vessels. But progenitor cells also differentiate along different pathways to become cells that form tissues. If cell A is on the pathway to cell B, then A is a progenitor of B. Cell A might or might not be a stem cell. Some researchers do refer to the cells that lead to specific tissues, like heart muscle, as stem cells. But people also refer to them as progenitor cells. The source of funding might have something to do with the choice of language.
Actually, I think it was a pretty well-written article. (Disclosure: I know Ed Edelson.)
But I don't think Edelson would mind the criticism. Good science teachers always want students to show off how smart they are and try to prove them wrong. Better to be cocky than stupid.
Don Ho [wikipedia.org] had this surgery done where his own stem cells, extracted from his blood, were injected into his heart. He died soon after but his surgeon claims that the surgery was so successful that Don didn't recover fully before resuming touring and put too much strain on his heart and died.
Actually, there were several studies that infused heart muscle stem cells into damaged hearts, over the last few years. Some German researchers are widely regarded as the most aggressive, or the most irresponsible, depending on who you talk to. The problem is that their patients also died. As I recall, the treatment didn't do any harm, but it didn't do any good. (That was dumb luck; patients can die in these studies.) There was a good review article in Science magazine that I'm too lazy to look up. A lot of people thought that human trials were premature, and they should go back to the mice and get it working first.
The problem with mice is that they don't pay doctors' bills. The advantage of mice is that, if the mouse dies, you can always get another mouse.
The Harvard researchers went back to the mice, which is what they should be doing. The interesting thing they did was mix the endothelial progenitor cells with the mesenchymal progenitor cells (or stem cells, if you prefer). And they got it working in real, living mice. The vessels lined up just right, and joined each other just the way real blood vessels are supposed to. I'd like to read the Circulation article and see what growth factors they used (probably VEGF and some other stuff).
To put this in context, it's important to realize that circulatory heart disease damages blood vessels, which then damages heart muscle. These Harvard guys are repairing blood vessels. Other people are working on heart muscle.
Here's the Bishchoff lab http://chbresearch.org/bischoff/research/index.htm [chbresearch.org]