Stem Cell Therapy for the Heart: Blind Alley or Magic Bullet?

• Published in: Journal of cardiovascular translational research Vol. 9; no. 5-6; pp. 405 - 418
• Main Authors: Bruyneel, Arne A. N., Sehgal, Apurv, Malandraki-Miller, Sophia, Carr, Carolyn
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2016
• Subjects: Animals; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedicine; Cardiology; Cell Differentiation; Cell Proliferation; Cell Survival; Clinical Trials as Topic; Heart Diseases - metabolism; Heart Diseases - pathology; Heart Diseases - physiopathology; Heart Diseases - surgery; Human Genetics; Humans; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Myocytes, Cardiac - metabolism; Myocytes, Cardiac - pathology; Myocytes, Cardiac - transplantation; Phenotype; Recovery of Function; Regeneration; Regenerative Medicine - methods; Review; Signal Transduction; Stem Cell Transplantation - adverse effects; Translational Research, Biomedical; Cardiac stem cells; Stem cell therapy; Regenerative medicine; Heart disease
• ISSN: 1937-5387; 1937-5395
• DOI: 10.1007/s12265-016-9708-y

When stressed by ageing or disease, the adult human heart is unable to regenerate, leading to scarring and hypertrophy and eventually heart failure. As a result, stem cell therapy has been proposed as an ultimate therapeutic strategy, as stem cells could limit adverse remodelling and give rise to new cardiomyocytes and vasculature. Unfortunately, the results from clinical trials to date have been largely disappointing. In this review, we discuss the current status of the field and describe various limitations and how future work may attempt to resolve these to make way to successful clinical translation.