HEALING THE INFARCTED HEART. THE CADUCEUS TRIAL

The latest Lancet online 14th Feb 2012, carries an important paper. The Cedar Sinai group, under Prof Eduardo Marban, undertook a study to see the safety of infusing stem cells into an infarcted area. It is a small study, about 25 patients who had an acute heart attack. The study involves harvested autologous cardiosphere derived stem cells from endomyocardial biosy, and infusing the stem cells into the infarct related artery after about 1.5-3 months of the index heart attacks. Their objective was not efficacy and recovery ( the sample size is too small for that ), it was to see if it is safe, as previous studies have shown that infusing stem cells could be hazardous as some have developed sudden cardiac death and also other forms of malignant arrhythmia s.
After 6 months of follow-up, the researchers found that it was safe. No patients died. The MACE in both groups were identical. There were no cardiac tumours detected. 4 patients in the treatment arm had some serious adverse. The authors did not say what events. The cardiac MRI done at 6 months seemed to suggest that the infarcted regional wall motion abnormality was improved, and also the infarcted segment seemed smaller. With such a small size, these findings must be seen to be preliminary and much more work with larger numbers needed to be done , before we can know for sure that Stem Cells helps to heal the infarcted heart.
In fact such studies are on the way, and we await the results.
Another small but important step towards healing the infarcted heart.