| Hope Stem Cells will Help Heart Patients |
SUFFERERS of Australia's number one killer - cardiovascular
disease - are being offered new hope of treatment by
world-first stem cell research in Adelaide.
The purified stem cell technology is showing early promise
and will give sufferers a new treatment option using cells
harvested from their own bone marrow.
The aim is to help regenerate damaged heart tissue. While it
is not designed to supersede current treatment, it gives
doctors another option for patients with heart failure who
are not responding to standard management, such as
medication, surgery and pacemakers.
Funded by the National Heart Foundation, the research was
unique because it used high purity stem cells extracted from
adult bone marrow, cardiologist Dr Peter Psaltis said.
"There has been quite a lot of work in developing
purification techniques with bone and cartilage, but its use
in cardiac research is really only beginning."
Six months into the study, Dr Psaltis said the team had
already noted promising results.
"Previously human cells were injected into rats that had had
heart attacks and the damage was reversed or repaired a lot
by new blood vessels formed in the heart."
Working out of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the team
includes University of Adelaide's Professor Stephen Worthley
and Dr Andrew Zannettino and Dr Stan Gronthos from the
Hanson Institute.
The team planned to test the technology in larger animals,
such as sheep, with human clinical trials expected to take
place in two to three years.
"Should the treatment become available worldwide we would be
looking at a 5-10 year time frame,"
Dr Psaltis said.
ANNA VLACH
The Advertiser
11 July 2006
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