Stem Cell Raises Hope For Heart Disease Patients

Hope has risen for the use of stem cells in heart treatment following the promise of a stem cell ‘patch’ to treat cardiovascular diseases. According to the findings of a study published in the ‘Journal Cell Stem Cell,’ scientists conducting the trial may be closer to reality as they test the device in animals, a necessary step prior to embarking on a human trial. Cardiovascular diseases generally refer to conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke.
Other heart conditions, such as those that affect heart muscles, valves or rhythm, also are considered forms of heart diseases. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the United States (US), said in theory, the heart patches, engineered tissue composed of the several different types of cells that make up heart muscle, would be implanted to replace diseased or damaged tissue and would perform all the functions of healthy, beating heart muscle.
The seven-year-old study is being funded by the National Institutes of Health. Co-Director of the UWMadison Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at the Madison, Timothy J. Kamp said: “The proposed studies in animal models are essential to develop this novel therapy, but the gold standard, of course, is a human patient.”
He said building the heart patch technology and testing it in a large animal model will go a long way toward harnessing the potential of stem cells to treat heart disease, which in many respects is still unproven. Stem cells are mother cells that have the potential to become any type of cell in the body.
One of the main characteristics of stem cells is their ability to self-renew or multiply while maintaining the potential to develop into other types of cells.
In Nigeria, the idea of stem cell regeneration is still a wishful one but practitioners in the alternative medicine industry say it would just be a matter of time before it is imported from the West - pending of course when the terapy is fully established in human treatment of heart disease.