Massive Stem Cell Trial Launched to Save Heart Attack Victims

Stem cells are being used to repair the hearts of heart attack victims in the largest heart-related stem-cell research trial ever.

The trail, which is being funded by the European Commission and involved scientists from 19 different nations, involves the treatment of 3000 heart attack victims.

The patients are all slated to receive experimental treatment designed to help repair the heart within the first five days following a massive heart attack. The treatment involves extracting stem cells from a patient's own bone marrow, and injecting them into the damaged heart. The doctors involved in this study expect that this treatment could increase heart attack survival rates by approximately 25 percent. Currently, only approximately 50 percent of heart attack victims survive the resulting heart damage.

So how will this work? Much like the ever-controversial embryonic stem cell, the adult stem cell has remarkable regenerative properties, able to produce a seemingly endless number of the cells that make up organ tissue in the body. The researchers behind this massive trail hope to use stem cells from a patient's spine to replace the destroyed or damage tissue and adult stem cells found in the heart. Once injected in the heart, it is the hope that these spinal stem cells will continue to do their job, pumping out organ tissue cells to repair the damaged heart.

According to the Heart cells foundation, this most recent trail was made possible due to the striking success of smaller 90 patient trials concluded this year, largely conducted under the project name "REGENERATE." The results from these smaller trials are slated to be published in scientific journals in the coming months.

The massive trail was officially launched on February 21, with the first set of patients receiving their spinal stem cell injections, according to a press release out from the Heart Cells Foundation.