Interní Med. 2009; 11(10): 452-457

Stem cells in cardiology: past, present and future of cellular therapy of heart disease

doc. MUDr. Martin Klabusay, Ph.D¹, Mgr. Josef Skopalík¹, prof. MUDr. Jaroslav Meluzín CSc²

¹ Laboratoř flow cytometrie a celulární terapie, Interní hematoonkologická klinika, LF MU a FN Brno

² I. interní kardioangiologická klinika FN u sv. Anny v Brně

Stem cells hold the promise – because of their unique properties of self-renewal and differentiation – of treating many severe illnesses,

including heart diseases (especially myocardial infarction and heart failure). Stem cells could be divided into two basic categories: embryonic

stem cells and adult stem cells. While the use of the first type in clinical medicine is restricted because of ethical, legal, religious

and technical issues, the use of the other cell type is not limited by these problems. It could be followed that many clinical studies, which

used various cell types for treatment of myocardial damage, emerged during last five years. Although most studies showed significant

benefit of cellular therapy for the patient, the results were not persuading enough to introduce the cellular therapy into clinical medicine.

Probably a demand for rapid development of clinical applications without proper knowledge of physiological principles led to this

partial failure. Thus, there is no other way than to go back to in vitro experiments and animal models and analyze the basic principles of

myocardial regeneration with the help of stem cells step by step. The results of recent experiments give us hope that the use of stem

cells in cardiology may become true in near future.

Keywords: cellular therapy, myocardial infarction, stem cells.

Published: November 1, 2009  Show citation