American Heart Association Here is a piece of news that could be of grave importance to heart patients. Well, a research claims that cells from heart attack survivors’ own bone marrow could decrease the danger of death or another heart attack when they were inserted into the affected artery following effective stent placement.

The researchers claimed that advantages discovered early in the Reinfusion of Enriched Progenitor Cells And Infarct Remodeling in Acute Myocardial Infarction (REPAIR-AMI) trial could carry on for no less than two years.

“More research is needed, but this gives us a hint of what might be possible with this new treatment — prevention of another heart attack and of rehospitalization for heart failure, both life-threatening complications,” commented, Birgit Assmus, M.D., first author of the research and assistant professor of cardiology at J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

The scientists performed the research in about 17 centers in Germany and Switzerland. They randomly allocated 101 heart attack survivors to be given a solution as well as progenitor cells from their own bone marrow. The rest of the 103 patients were given a placebo solution.

Progenitor cells, similar to stem cells, are claimed to be early-stage cells. They could still distinguish into diverse kinds of specific adult cells, but not accurately like a cellular ‘blank slate’ observed with stem cells. Rather, progenitor cells are apparently more detailed as compared to stem cells and are further along in the procedure towards forming the type of adult cell they could turn into.

The researchers also inserted cells or placebo into the artery that apparently generated patients’ heart attacks, three to seven days subsequent to experiencing reperfusion therapy.

The outcomes of the research noted that at two years, no patients from the bone marrow cell group apparently had experienced a heart attack while seven patients from the placebo group appeared to have a statistically considerable distinction. It was also seen that as opposed to placebo patients, cell-infused patients apparently had less chances to die i.e. 3 vs. 8 in placebo group. People who required new revascularizations were 25 vs. 38, or individuals who had to be rehospitalized for heart failure were 1 vs. 5.

The research was published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Heart Failure.