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Change Your Life! |
Doctors transplant muscle cells to patient's failing heart |
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September 30, 2000
PHILADELPHIA, SEPT 29 (AP) - For the first time, doctors have transplanted a patient's own skeletal muscle onto his heart to see if similar tissue could one day be used to treat heart disease. Under the procedure, a small amount of muscle from a patient's arm was removed, grown in a lab for two weeks and then grafted to his heart. The 48-year-old patient is awaiting a heart transplant. The study, being conducted by Temple University and Diacrin Inc., is "primarily a safety study to see if the graft takes," said E. Michael Egan, vice president for corporate development at Boston-based Diacrin. "The patient becomes almost like a petri dish of his own," said Dr. Satoshi Furukawa, surgical director of the heart and lung transplant program at Temple. Researchers will monitor six patients in the study to better understand the safety of transplanting the cells and the potential benefits. They plan to analyze patients' hearts after transplant to examine the cells more closely. Preliminary studies on animals suggest that the transplanted muscle tissue may repair damaged heart muscle and strengthen heart contractions. "There are far more people who need heart transplants than there are donors," said Dr. Howard Eisen, the medical director of Temple's heart transplant program. "It's a patient's own cells, so there's no fear of rejection." Heart disease - America's leading killer - affects an estimated 12 million Americans. The ideal solution, which would be years away, is that a patient who has a heart attack would have muscle cells grafted to the heart to prevent further damage and even avert the need for a transplant, Egan said. One expert said the research holds promise. "If it's safe and feasible, then the next question will be how much impact it has and whether you can graft enough cells to substantially benefit patients," said Dr. Sidney C. Smith, a past president of the American Heart Association and a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina. Using transplanted cells in lieu of a heart transplant is likely years away. "Will it happen in my lifetime? I'm not so sure. But there's potential," Furukawa said. --- On the Net: American Heart Association: http://www.americanheart.org
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