Stem cells for heart disease

The heart muscle is a type of tissue that has little ability to repair itself, particularly in the case of chronic cardiac disease or myocardial infarction. It’s due to the prevalence of heart diseases and associated complications which require maintenance therapy and expensive medication for life has increased the interest in using cell based therapies to treat this type of diseases. This is where adipose derived stem cells come into play. It has been demonstrated that fat derived stem cells applied at the same time with basic fibroblast growth and vascular endothelial growth factor led to the formation of new blood vessels from pre-existing blood vessels (angiogenesis) as well as blood vessel maturation. Fat derived stem cells also present the cellular markers to form ion gated channels essential to rhythmic activity within clusters of cardiac cells. In SCHI, we increase the efficacy of treatment by using the patients’ platelet rich plasma (PRP) I conjunction with the stem cells and growth factors.

Read more about this in Harvard Women’s Health Watch, “Repairing the heart with stem cells”