Wednesday, March 23, 2005
An article I tore out of Science (www.sciencemag.org) from 9 April 2004, that got lost in a stack and just now came to light, talks about "Renovating the Heart." The abstract says:
The therapy being tested involves taking cells from a patient's own body, and injecting them into the ailing heart. No really show-stopping results yet but there have been some successes and some warning signs that cell therapy can be dangerous. Some patients in one study developed arrhythmias - [but then, heart failure patients have a high risk of arrhythmia anyway, so is this due to the cell therapy, or something that would have happened anyway?].
Stay tuned.
Inspired by reports that cell infusions can heal animal hearts, cardiologists are rapidly moving to test the idea in humans."
The therapy being tested involves taking cells from a patient's own body, and injecting them into the ailing heart. No really show-stopping results yet but there have been some successes and some warning signs that cell therapy can be dangerous. Some patients in one study developed arrhythmias - [but then, heart failure patients have a high risk of arrhythmia anyway, so is this due to the cell therapy, or something that would have happened anyway?].
Stay tuned.
