Abstract
Myocardial infarction causes death worldwide with the greatest incidence being in the United States. Although there have been many advances in myocardial re-perfusion strategies and novel pharmacological approaches, therapies for treating acute and chronic myocardial ischemic damage remain limited. This means that no currently available heart failure treatment has demonstrated an ability to generate new muscle tissue within the scared regions of the heart. Stem cell, however, offers new hope to patients who have otherwise limited choices. Therefore, this review aims at exploring the use and peculiarities of stem cell therapy for myocardial infarction. But the success of stem cell therapy for clinical use needs the validation of several issues ranging from selection of appropriate stem cells, routes of transfer, establishment of conducive trans-differentiation milieu with associated cytokines, means to evaluate/track response to cell therapy to compliance with regulatory and ethical issues besides addressing biological and technical issues surrounding stem cell therapy.
Highlights
Myocardial infarction (MI) is a main cause of mortality and morbidity in Western societies [1]
Though stem cells of various origins that show plasticity to cardiomyoctes are identified, this paper focuses more on study trial principally on Bone marrow derived stem cells (BMSCs) as prototypes
ConclusionWhile the initially perceived rapid chance for a complete cardiac repair by stem/progenitor cell therapy after Myocardial infarction (MI) has generated high expectations, the potential of this therapy needs to be carefully developed by addressing important remaining questions, including the optimal cell types and preconditioning, the timing and dosing cells to be seed, how to augment the functional repair capacity of transplanted cells, how to optimize their homing and engraftment in the heart, and how to select the patients that may benefit most from this therapy
Summary
Myocardial infarction (MI) is a main cause of mortality and morbidity in Western societies [1]. In USA the estimated annual incidence of MI is 610000 new attacks and 325000 recurrent attacks [2]. The American Heart Association (AHA) recently created a new set of ‘Impact Goals’ for the current decade. The aim, by 2020, is to improve the cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20%, while reducing deaths from cardiovascular disease and stroke by 20% [3]. There have been many advances in myocardial reperfusion strategies and novel pharmacological approaches, therapies for treating acute and chronic myocardial ischemic damage remain limited. No currently available heart failure treatment has demonstrated an ability to generate new muscle tissue within the scarred regions of a heart. Offers new hope to patients who have otherwise limited choices [4]
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