First Human Receives Cardiac Stem Cells in Clinical Trial to Heal Damage Caused By Hea...( Heart Attack Patient Receives His Own...),Health

Heart Attack Patient Receives His Own Heart Stem Cells as Part of Medical Study to Determine Safety of New Technique to Repair Injured Heart Muscle

LOS ANGELES, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute announced today the completion of the first procedure in which a patient's own heart tissue was used to grow specialized heart stem cells that were then injected back into the patient's heart in an effort to repair and re-grow healthy muscle in a heart that had been injured by a heart attack.

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The minimally-invasive procedure was completed on the first patient on Friday, June 26.

The procedure is part of a Phase I investigative study approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and supported by the Specialized Centers for Cell-based Therapies at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. It is the first to use adult cells from a patient's own heart to attempt to heal injured heart muscle.

"This procedure signals a new and exciting era in the understanding and treatment of heart disease," said Eduardo Marban, MD PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who developed the technique and is leading the clinical trial. "Five years ago, we didn't even know the heart had its own distinct type of stem cells. Now we are exploring how to harness such stem cells to help patients heal their own damaged hearts."

The study is directed by the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, with the collaboration of the Johns Hopkins University, where Dr. Marban worked prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2007. The 24
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