Brits to trial stem cell treatment for heart attack victims

In an experimental treatment which aims to prevent heart failure and death following a heart attack, doctors in Britain will trial a treatment which uses a patients own stem cells.

The clinical trial which takes place early in the new year will involve fifty acute heart attack patients at two London hospitals.

They will have the stem cells extracted from their bone marrow and injected into their hearts, after an angioplasty to open up blocked arteries has been completed.

Only those patients with one blocked artery will be eligible for inclusion in the clinical trial.

The doctors involved believe the treatment should delay or prevent the onset of heart failure.

Professor John Martin, of University College London, a cardiac specialist, will conduct the trial and he says they hope the stem cells will repair the damage to the heart muscle and that the patients will have an increased quality of life six months after the procedure.

He says animal studies suggest there is an early window in which you can prevent the damage and they aim to administer the stem cell treatment within five hours from when the patient is admitted.

As stem cells are the master cells that can turn into any cell or tissue type scientists believe they could act as a type of repair system and offer new treatments for illnesses ranging from heart disease and diabetes to Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis.

The stem cells with the greatest potential are of course the embryonic stem cells, but their use remains controversial because they are derived from early embryos.

Adult stem cells have a more limited range, but those taken from the patients themselves overcome the ethical concerns and reduce the risk of their being rejected by the body.

Professor Martin says all previous studies have been in small groups of patients and have put cells into the heart several days or weeks after the heart attack, after the heart has been damaged.

The British study intends to combine the normal treatment for a heart attack, along with the stem cell therapy and the scientists believe that if the therapy is delivered quickly after an attack it can stop the damage to the heart.

The trial follows on from earlier work with animals and humans using stem cells for treating heart disease.

In a trial of 28 patients with severe heart disease, scientists in Hong Kong and Australia found the treatment improved the blood pumping ability of the heart and increased the patients' ability to exercise.

Martin says it will be two years before doctors know the results of the study, which has been funded by the UK Stem Cell Foundation which supports stem cell research.

Heart disease is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. In Britain 100,000 people die each year from heart attack, while in the United States nearly 700,000 people die of heart disease each year.

Many people who survive a heart attack suffer subsequent health problems. Smoking, high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, obesity, lack of exercise and diabetes are risk factors for heart disease.