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Stem cells look promising for treating heart disease

Research

Stem cell therapies could potentially reduce numbers of deaths from heart disease when used in addition to standard heart drugs and surgery, research suggests.

Taking stem cells from a patient’s bone marrow and injecting them into damaged heart tissue may become an effective way to treat heart disease, suggests a new study. Researchers reviewed data from the clinical trials that have been conducted so far of these novel therapies.

'This is encouraging evidence that stem cell therapy has benefits for heart disease patients. However, it is generated from small studies and it is difficult to come to any concrete conclusions until larger clinical trials that look at longer-term effects are carried out,' says Dr Enca Martin-Rendon of the University of Oxford and a member of the Cochrane Heart Review Group that carried out the study. 

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