Health insurance news - Stem cells could mend broken hearts

Hearts scarred by heart attacks can be restored to health with stem cells gathered from the patient's own heart, a clinical trial in the US has found.

The treatment halved the extent of what would have been permanent scarring on the heart and also led to the growth of healthy new heart muscle.

Researchers say it shows stem cells have a vital role to play in reversing the damage caused by heart attacks.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said it was "early days" but was an "encouraging" trial.

There are around 124,000 heart attacks in the UK each year.

The study, undertaken by scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, is published in the leading medical journal the Lancet.

Professor Eduardo Marbán and his team studied 25 patients with an average age of 53 who had experienced heart attacks.

Under the trial, 17 of them received coronary artery infusions of approximately 12 to 25 million stem cells taken from healthy tissue in their own hearts.

The remaining eight, representing a control group, received conventional medical care for heart attack recovery, including prescription medicine and dietary advice. 

A year later, scar size in the patients treated with stem cells was reduced from 24 per cent to 12 per cent.

In patients who had been given traditional treatment, no change at all was registered.

"This discovery challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, scar is permanent and that, once lost, healthy heart muscle cannot be restored," Professor Marbán said.

Professor Jeremy Pearson, BHF associate medical director, said the study was "potentially exciting" and "could be great news for heart attack patients".

"It's early days, and this research will certainly need following up, but it could be great news for heart attack patients who face the debilitating symptoms of heart failure," he said.