Cells From Muscle, Bone Repair Heart

Researchers: Early Data Encouraging

CHICAGO -- Doctors have been able to repair seemingly dead heart muscle with cells from heart attack patients' own thigh muscles or bones.

Researchers led by Dr. Nabil Dib at the Arizona Heart Institute in Phoenix have safely transplanted 16 patients' skeletal muscle cells into their own severely damaged hearts in the first human testing in the United States. Their findings were reported over the weekend at the annual scientific meeting in Chicago of the American Heart Association.

The idea is to find an alternative to transplants for people whose hearts are so damaged that they fail to pump blood forcefully enough. Researchers say preliminary results of the new procedure have been encouraging.

Doctors say the shifted cells can live inside the heart's dead scar tissue and show at least some signs of contracting like the original heart muscle.

"We have been able to regenerate dead heart muscle, or scar tissue, in the area of heart attack without increasing risk of death," Dib said.

Heart failure is a growing health problem that afflicts an estimated 5 million people in the United States alone.

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• November 18, 2002: Study: Hostility May Damage Heart
• November 14, 2002: Inflammation Worse Than Cholesterol For Heart
• November 12, 2002: FDA Approves First At-Home Defibrillator
• November 5, 2002: Drug Combo Doesn't Cut Heart Attack Deaths
• October 30, 2002: Heart Failure Survival Improves Since '50s
• October 30, 2002: 'Cool' New Procedure Helps Protect Heart
• October 23, 2002: Drug-Coated Stent Inches Toward Approval
• October 23, 2002: Study: More Intense Exercise Benefits Heart
• October 16, 2002: Birth Control Shot Tied To Heart Risk
• September 24, 2002: Dwelling On Fights May Hurt Heart
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• September 18, 2002: Beware Of High Triglyceride Levels
• September 12, 2002: Heart Defect That Kills Athletes Under Study
• September 9, 2002: Garlic May Help Heart Surgery Patients

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