Safety and Efficacy of Intracoronary Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells After Acute Myocardial Infarction

Early reperfusion strategies in tandem with remarkable advances in drugs and devices for treating myocardial infarction (MI) have contributed to a reduction in early mortality, but cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Current management strategies cannot solve the problem of cardiomyocyte loss and consequent progression of heart failure. In this respect, stem-cell therapy has shown potential benefits for repairing the damaged myocardium. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been considered to be attractive therapeutic candidates because of their high capacity for replication: paracrine effect: ability to preserve potency: and because they do not cause adverse reactions to allogeneic versus autologous transplants. Intracoronary injection of stem cells seems to be safe, but only one clinical trial using MSCs via the intracoronary route in the setting of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been carried out. The investigators therefore assessed the safety and efficacy of intracoronary autologous bone marrow (BM)-derived human MSCs in patients with AMI.