WEDNESDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Perfusing stem cells into the heart to promote repair after a heart attack is safe and improves outcomes such as cardiac arrhythmias, pulmonary function, left ventricular function and overall symptoms, according to a study in the Dec. 8 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Joshua M. Hare, M.D., from the University of Miami in Florida, and colleagues randomly assigned 53 reperfused patients with myocardial infarction to placebo or escalating doses (0.5, 1.6, and 5 million cells/kg) of intravenous bone marrow-derived allogeneic human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs).

At six months, the researchers found that the rates of adverse events were similar in the hMSC and placebo groups (5.3 versus 7.0 per patient). Renal, hepatic, and hematologic laboratory indexes were also similar in the two groups. However, patients treated with hMSCs had significantly fewer ventricular tachycardia episodes, improved forced expiratory volume in one second, improved global symptom score, better ejection fraction in the subset of patients with anterior myocardial infarction, and increased left ventricular ejection fraction leading to reverse remodeling.

"Intravenous allogeneic hMSCs are safe in patients after acute myocardial infarction," Hare and colleagues conclude. "Specific safety monitoring indicated that cell-treated patients, in fact, had improved outcomes with regard to cardiac arrhythmias, pulmonary function, left ventricular function, and symptomatic global assessment."

The study was sponsored by Osiris Therapeutics, which had no role in data collection but participated in data analysis and interpretation. Authors of the study and editorial reported financial or consulting relationships with pharmaceutical and device companies.

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