Researchers report that repair patches of heart are ready for human trials

Patches could someday help people manage and recover from debilitating heart failure, a disease that affects an estimated 920,000 people in the UK alone and is increasing worldwide, according to researchers from the BHF. The patches are pieces of cardiac tissue the size of an inch, measuring 3 cm by 2 cm and containing up to 50 million human stem cells. These cells have the ability to turn into fully functioning heart tissue and are intended to be applied to the heart of someone who has had a heart attack. Used in this way, they can limit or even reverse the loss of the heart's pumping capacity.

Heart attack, heart defense

"One day, we hope to add cardiac corrections to the treatments that doctors can routinely offer people after a heart attack," says Dr. Richard Jabbour, who led the research at the BHF Regenerative Medicine Center in London.

"We could prescribe one of these patches with medications for a person with heart failure, which you could take on a shelf and implant directly into a person."

During a heart attack, the supply of nutrients and oxygen to our heart can be compromised, killing parts of the heart muscle. This leaves the organ weakened and may even lead to heart failure later. This condition implies that the heart can not pump enough blood to the rest of the body, which makes even the most mundane tasks such as climbing stairs or dressing extremely tiring.

The patches are intended to be sewn in place on the damaged heart, where they will provide physical support to the damaged muscle and help it pump more efficiently. At the same time, the patch provides compounds that stimulate its healing and regeneration. The team hopes that these patches will be incorporated into the heart muscle.

Patches begin to beat spontaneously after three days and begin to mimic the structure of mature heart fabric inside a month, explains the team. After that, they can be grafted into the damaged heart to help it repair and recover normal functionality.

The rabbit tests showed that these patches were safe and that they improved the heart function after a heart attack. Four weeks after the patches were applied, cardiac tests showed that the left ventricle of the heart (the one that pumps the blood to the body) was recovering well, with no abnormal heart rhythm. Other methods of stem cell administration run the risk that such abnormal rhythms develop, the team explained.

So far, patches have proven themselves. efficiency. The next steps include a clinical trial on human subjects, first to check their degree of safety and then to determine if they can reach the same level of healing as humans. They have been developed to replace the more traditional approach of injecting stem cells directly into damaged hearts, with mixed results. In the absence of a patch, the stem cells are quickly removed from the heart before meaningful repairs can be made.

"One day, we hope to add cardiac patches to the treatments that doctors can routinely offer patients after a heart attack," said Dr. Richard Jabbour, who led the research at the BHF Regenerative Medicine Center in London.

"We could prescribe one of these patches with medications for a person with heart failure, which you could take on a shelf and implant directly into a person."

The results were presented at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) conference in Manchester on Monday, 3 June.