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Injections To Replace Heart Surgery?
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.
Couldn't we *please get this in a pill already?
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Looks like they're using human cells in mice. And they're not using stem cells. Of course, the other way in humans to do this is to do aerobic excercises. A wife of one of my bosses apparently had complete blockage of her main coronary arteries. She's around 50ish and had basically been walking around like that for many years before any symptoms arrived. Hooray for collateral blood vessels!
I only know about a Progenitor Virus. Maybe i should stop playing video games.
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 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.
Bypass surgery is significant portion of all heart operations. This is typically done when atherosclerosis (fatty calcific deposits) block the vessels, reduce the blood supply to the hearts muscle, and people wind up with chest pain, and sometimes a heart attack.
Hearts are operated on for many other reasons as well, which are not just for needing new vessels. Hearts get leaky valves, become too thick, transplants etc.
..........FULL STOP.
funny scene from Star Trek IV
Osiris Therapeutics (osiris.com) is already doing this, and in Phase II clinical trials with progenitor cells (mesenchymal stem cells) for heart attack and Phase III in other indications.
The NIH has written an excellent review of stem cell therapy for myocardial infarction for those interested. It hasn't been updated in several years, but it should provide a lot of the biological context and rationale for these types of experiments.
What on Earth are you talking about?
Coincidintally, I was watching this on google video yesterday. It's a presentation by a researcher in the field talking about stem cells (for the record, she used stem cells and "progenator" cells seemingly-interchangably) and she mentioned that particular study. It's about 60% of the way through the video if I remember right. Anyway, while there was an improvement when placing stem cells into the heart along with the surgury, the improvement was in the area of 5.5% improvement, with 3.5% using a saline placebo. So yes, technically, the poster was right with the improvements, we're still quite a ways away from having developed any sort of new human treatments.
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
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 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
Ah, you're right I should have read the actual paper. The fact remains though, that similar treatments are being performed on humans in countries with less stringent standards which makes mouse studies somewhat less exciting but, of course important.
That doesn't make much sense. If the stem cells were in his blood, wouldn't they be in his heart already?
I'm no doctor but that seems like a load of hogwash if I'm interpreting it right.
scalpel.
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Wowâ¦got to love it. Instead of saying "adult stem cells", they say "progenitor cells". Amazing. Despite not one real solution from embryonic stem cell research around the world and a continuous train or real solutions from adult stem cells, so many people want to keep pushing for embryonic research.
Why not pull for the winning team.
And BTW, my total cholesterol was under 160 and my triglycerides were at 150, high normal, at the time of the surgery. My cardiac ejection fraction was @ 60% and I had no symptoms of any sort until a bit of arrhythmia showed up during a routine exam when I had been at 60bps for years. Genetics - the boomerang that catches you from behind.
Too lazy to create a sig...
While I think it's fascinating and should definitely be pursued, I'm going to remain skeptical on this for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, TFA says the process takes seven days to grow the vessels, though they hope to get that down to 24-48 hours. That is nowhere near what needs to be done to be viable. If you're considering surgery, you can't just wait half a week or so - you need results and you need them stat. Secondly, saying that the people who performed the research saw "improved heart function" is highly suspect - there're no numbers, no statistics, nothing solid at all. It sounds like a great idea, but far, far away...
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They should program a type of stem cell that can go and replace every cell in your body within a few seconds or so. Maybe have some sorta energy these cells could feed off of to make them grow and replace the old cells really really fast. Then you could carry around a couple dozen sets of these cells with different DNA that way with each renewal you don't have risk of cancer due to each set of the cells having different DNA.
If your body is feeling really sick and you are about to die or if you just died of trauma, within a few minutes these cells could go to work replacing all of the old cells and repairing any physical damage to your body.
Though I don't think hospitals would like because they would be out of a job, there would be no need for Doctors anymore.
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Because you whining cry babies keep complaining about research with embryonic stem cells
I believe the concern is actually about the absence of whining cry babies.
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