Autologous Cell Cardiac-Implant

pp 137-142

Abstract

Acute myocardial infarction leads to loss of functional myocites and structural integrity of heart.On the other hand, cell transplantation to repair or regenerate injured myocardium is a new development in the treatment of cardiovascular disease.The clinical advantage of his approach called cellular cardiac-implant for myocardial repair is obvious because autologous myoblast implantation avoids logistic difficulties present in cardiac trans-plant, as well as the immunosuppressive therapy.Autologous skeletal myoblasts appear to be the best characterized, the most appropiate and best first generation cells for cardiac repair. At present twenty patients have been operated with this technique all over the world. However the era of cell transplantation has just begun. What type of cell is the best? and What is the efficacy of the procedure? are major questions remaining unaswered. Besides it is not known whether cardiac muscle can develop electromechanical junctions with skeletal muscle and induce its synchronous con-traction.Autologous cellular cardiac implant offers the promise of restoring regional function for infarcted patients. Further studies are necessary to assess the efficacy of this approach.