Stem cell treatment involves introducing new cells into the damaged tissue that self-renews to generate and replace the diseased tissue and thus help treatment of a disease or an injury. Several researches have been conducted using stem cell treatment strategy targeting the heart diseases.
A recent study proved that stem cell injections can help patients with chest pain that doesn’t subside with medicine or angioplasty or even surgery. It has also studied to be successful in improving the exercise tolerance of the patients. CD34+ stem cells that circulate in the blood cells help forming new blood vessels. Thus, the blood circulation in the diseases heart muscle improves. With improved blood circulation, the episode of pain can be successfully relieved.
Dr. Douglas W. Losordo, M.D. along with a team of doctors concluded after a trial and study on a 167 patients with ‘refractory’ angina, that it is possible to control or reduce the chronic chest pain by injecting stem cells. Patients were at random separated into three groups low dose (100,000 CD34+ cells/kg body weight), high dose (500,000 CD34+ cells/kg body weight) or a placebo.
These patients were studied over a period of year, and it was concluded that those who were injected with the stem cells reported less rates of cardiac pain and also showed improved exercise ability. While those on placebo, were more susceptible to chest pains and had very low exercise tolerance too.
