Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Stem cell therapy in postinfarction chronic coronary heart disease

Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine volume 3, pages S101–S104 (2006)Cite this article

An Addendum to this article was published on 18 February 2016

Abstract

After acute myocardial infarction, bone-marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) improve cardiac function; it is conceivable, but not yet demonstrated, that BMDC therapy might also be useful in chronic infarction. We treated 18 consecutive patients who had chronic myocardial infarction (between 5 months and 8.5 years postinfarction) using intracoronary transplantation of autologous BMDCs and compared this group with a representative control group who did not receive cell therapy. After 3 months, infarct size in the transplantation group was reduced by 30% and both global left ventricular ejection fraction and infarction wall-movement velocity were increased significantly (15% and 57%, respectively), whereas in the control group no significant changes were observed. After transplantation of BMDCs, there was an 11% improvement in maximum oxygen uptake and a 15% increase in regional 18F-fluordeoxyglucose uptake into infarcted tissue, as determined by positron emission tomography. These results show that functional and metabolic regeneration of infarcted and chronically avital tissue can be achieved in humans using transplantation of bone-marrow-derived cells.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Algorithm used for intracoronary bone-marrow-derived cell therapy in chronic ischemic heart disease after myocardial infarction
Figure 2: Transplantation of bone marrow cells into infarcted myocardium in humans
Figure 3: Bar chart comparing the mean values of ejection fraction, as determined by quantitative left ventriculography, in two groups of patients with chronic myocardial infarction (controls versus cell-therapy group; n = 18 in each group) at three time points (investigations 1, 2, and 3)

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. American Heart Association (2001) Heart and Stroke Statistical Update. Dallas: American Heart Association

  2. Ho KK et al. (1993) Survival after the onset of congestive heart failure in Framingham Heart Study subjects. Circulation 88: 107–115

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Pfeffer MA and Braunwald E (1990) Ventricular remodeling after myocardial infarction. Experimental observations and clinical implications. Circulation 81: 1161–1172

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Schwarz F et al. (1982) Intracoronary thrombolysis in acute myocardial infarction: duration of ischemia as a major determinant of late results after recanalization. Am J Cardiol 50: 933–937

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Strauer BE and Kornowski R (2003) Stem cell therapy in perspective. Circulation 107: 929–934

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Orlic D et al. (2001) Bone marrow cells regenerate infarcted myocardium. Nature 410: 701–705

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Kocher AA et al. (2001) Neovascularization of ischemic myocardium by human bone-marrow-derived angioblasts prevents cardiomyocyte apoptosis, reduces remodeling and improves cardiac function. Nat Med 7: 430–436

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Strauer BE et al. (2001) Myocardial regeneration after intracoronary transplantation of human autologous stem cells following acute myocardial infarction [in German]. Dtsch Med Wschr 126: 932–938

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Strauer BE et al. (2002) Repair of infarcted myocardium by autologous intracoronary mononuclear bone marrow cell transplantation in humans. Circulation 106: 1913–1918

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Perin EC et al. (2003) Transendocardial, autologous bone marrow cell transplantation for severe, chronic ischemic heart failure. Circulation 107: 2294–2302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Stamm C et al. (2003) Autologous bone-marrow stem-cell transplantation for myocardial regeneration. Lancet 361: 45–46

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Strauer BE et al. (2005) Regeneration of human infarcted heart muscle by intracoronary autologous bone marrow cell transplantation in chronic coronary artery disease: the IACT study. J Am Coll Cardiol 46: 1651–1658

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Beltrami AP et al. (2003) Adult cardiac stem cells are multipotent and support myocardial regeneration. Cell 114: 763–776

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Orlic D et al. (2001) Mobilized bone marrow cells repair the infarcted heart, improving function and survival. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98: 10344–10349

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Leri A et al. (2002) Myocyte proliferation and ventricular remodeling. J Card Fail 8 (Suppl 6): S518–S525

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Alvarez-Dolado M et al. (2003) Fusion of bone-marrow-derived cells with Purkinje neurons, cardiomyocytes and hepatocytes. Nature 425: 968–973

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Murry CE et al. (2004) Haematopoietic stem cells do not transdifferentiate into cardiac myocytes in myocardial infarcts. Nature 428: 664–668

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Anversa P et al. (2002) Myocardial regeneration. Eur Heart J 4 (Suppl G): G67–G71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Torella D et al. (2004) Cardiac stem cell and myocyte aging, heart failure, and insulin-like growth factor-1 overexpression. Circ Res 94: 514–524

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Nadal-Ginard B et al. (2003) Myocyte death, growth, and regeneration in cardiac hypertrophy and failure. Circ Res 92: 139–150

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. an invasive cardiologist in Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Pneumology and Angiology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Michael Brehm

  2. Head of the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Pneumology and Angiology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Bodo E Strauer

Authors
  1. Michael Brehm
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bodo E Strauer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Brehm.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brehm, M., Strauer, B. Stem cell therapy in postinfarction chronic coronary heart disease. Nat Rev Cardiol 3 (Suppl 1), S101–S104 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpcardio0431

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpcardio0431

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing