Lab-grown ‘patches’ could provide a lifeline for the one million people in the UK suffering from heart failure.
Around half the sufferers of the condition, which leaves the heart unable to pump blood around the body properly, die within five years of diagnosis.
But there is hope from heart muscle patches which scientists have created using stem cells, and which the British Heart Foundation said could ‘usher in a new era of heart failure treatment’.
Stem cells can become any type of cell in the body when triggered to do so by chemicals in a laboratory.
Scientists have made stem cells into heart muscle cells, which grow together to form large patches measuring four inches (10cm) by two inches (5cm).
These patches begin pumping on their own in the lab and two of them can be grafted on to the heart, where they help it pump more strongly.
The groundbreaking treatment has been found to safely work in monkeys, and in a 46-year-old woman from Germany with severe heart failure.
The heart patches, which were similar to heart tissue from a child, aged four to eight, were made using stem cells taken from blood.
Lab-grown ‘patches’ could provide a lifeline for the one million people in the UK suffering from heart failure (stock photo)
British Heart Foundation has the development of the patches could ‘usher in a new era of heart failure treatment’ (file photo)
The groundbreaking treatment has been found to safely work in monkeys, and in a 46-year-old woman from Germany with severe heart failure (stock photo)
People’s own blood is not used to make their heart patch as these patches would take years to create and may even be attacked by their immune system.
However using stem cells from other people means patients whose hearts are patched up need to take powerful immunosuppressant drugs.
But research in monkeys called rhesus macaques found the heart patches are safe and increase the thickness and pumping ability of the heart wall.
Heart muscle patches made from stem cells do not trigger an irregular heartbeat.
This is a side effect seen when actual heart muscle cells are injected into someone’s heart.
The 46-year-old woman given a patch – the first for whom there is results – saw her heart patch mature and link to blood vessels in her own heart.
So far the researchers, whose current results are published in the journal Nature, have surgically implanted the patches into 15 people.
Commenting on the study, Professor James Leiper, director of research at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘Further clinical trials in larger numbers of patients are needed to determine the effectiveness of the heart patch in humans.
‘If these are positive, it could help to usher in a new era of heart failure treatment.’
