Stem cell therapy, the most common of which is bone marrow transplants, significantly improves exercise time and reduces mortality in people with severe chest pain.
Extreme chest pain, known as angina, is one of the key warning signs of heart disease. Stem cell therapy is thought to ease angina by improving blood flow.
Angina is a warning sign of heart disease and occurs when the heart does not receive enough blood. Angina is chest pain or discomfort caused when the heart muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen- rich blood. It may feel like pressure or squeezing in the chest.
The discomfort also can occur in the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back. Angina pain may even feel like indigestion. But, angina is not a disease.
It is a symptom of an underlying heart problem, usually coronary heart disease (CHD). However, results from the reviews by the researchers from Duke University in North Carolina, revealed that stem cell therapy significantly improved patients ability to exercise at months three, six and 12.
The researchers conducted a review of three studies with a total of 226 patients suffering from severe angina. At 24 months, the risk of mortality in stem cell therapy-receiving patients was 2.6 per cent versus 11.8 per cent for those getting a placebo.
The risk of angina and cardiac events was the same between the two groups. Patients with severe angina often have few treatment options, resulting in them becoming severely debilitated, the researchers said.
