 | What are stem cells? |
 | Stem cells are primodial, unspecialized cells that have the remarkable potential to renew themselves as long as the person or animal is still alive. Under suitable conditions, they can become another type of more specialized, terminally differentiated cells such as brain, heart muscles, liver, nerve, red blood cells, etc. Stem cells serve as asort of repair system by replenishing cells that are lost because of senescence or injuries. |
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| Who is suitable for stem cell treatment? |
| At this stage, the treatment will be confine to heart patients who have recurrent symptoms and inadequate heart function, despite having undergone multiple conventional treatments with coronary artery bypass surgery and/or balloon angioplsty and stenting of stenotic or narrowed coronary vessels and sre deemed not suitable for repeat treatment. |
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| Will immunosuppressive drugs be required after cell therapy? |
| No, since the cells are your own cells there is no risk of rejection. Also the risk of transplanted cells attacking the host, so called graft versus host reaction, is also eliminated. |
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| How long does it take to grow the cells in the lab? |
| At the present tim, it takes about a week to grow the cells in sufficient numbers for therapeutic purpose. |
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| Does the process of growing the cells in the lab involve contact with animal cells or proteins? |
| No, the procedure developed by TheraVitae to grow the cells does not involve any contact with foreign cells or proteins and this obviate the risk of inadvertent transmission of animal's virus. |
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| How long do I have to stay in the hospital? |
| It depends on your general medical condition. For the initial blood drawing, patients usually stay overnight for observation and comprehensive medical evaluation. For the actual cell therapy procedure done a week later, patients usually need to stay for only a few days in the hospital. |
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| How are the cells administered? |
| The cells are given through a catheter inserted through a groin artery and threaded into the coronary blood vesscells. This is essentially the same procedure that is performed in the percutaneous balloon angioplasty procedure. |
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| What are the risks of this procedure? |
| The risks of cell therapy are the same as the risks associated with balloon angioplasty. The cell product itself is very safe and essentially has no added risks since the cell product is a normal constituent of the blood. |
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| Is there risk of the cells inducing the formation of tumor? |
| To date, there is no reported case of this occuring in more than 200 patients receiving cell treatments worldwide. While embryonic stem cells do have the tendency to form tumor if injected into the body, this does not happen with adult stem cells. |
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| How long does it take to discern the improvment after cell therapy? |
| The improvement can be seen as early as one month and usually reaches its peak after about six months. |
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