Stem Cell Implantation for Myocardial Disorders

Cell therapy is currently attracting growing interest as a potential new means of improving the prognosis of patients with heart failure. For practical reasons, autologous skeletal myoblasts have been the first to be tested in clinical trials, but recently cardiovascular researchers has explored many other cell types, including bone marrow cells, endothelial progenitor cells, mesenchymal stem cells, embryonic stem cells, and resident cardiac stem cells. While recent experimental studies and early-phase clinical trials seem to support the concept that cell therapy may enhance cardiac repair, many challenges remain before achieving this goal. Further studies should focus on finding the optimal donor cells for transplantation, the mechanism by which engrafted cells improve cardiac function, controlling the survival and proliferation of transplanted cells, and the development of more efficient cell delivery techniques.