New Horizons in Cardiovascular Treatment: Cellular Cardiomyoplasty and Stem Cell Transplantation

Today, congestive heart failure and acute myocardial infarction, which is accepted as the main factor that contributes to the development of heart failure, are major causes of deaths despite advances in surgical procedures, mechanical assistance devices, drug therapy and organ transplantation. However, these procedures only prevent further myocardial deterioration and do not act on the underlying pathophysiology which are fibrosis and cardiac remodeling. As further advances in genetics provide the possibility of preventing fibrosis and cardiomyocyte regeneration in damaged myocardium, studies are being made in this way. For this reason, a variety of cell types including stem cells were used and successful results were obtained. After studies on animal models; pilot studies to explore the effect of cellular cardiomyoplasty and stem cell implantation on humans have been started. Data that have been gained from human studies till now are encouraging for further studies in this era. But there is a need for larger-scale randomized trials to determine the post-transplantation risk, as well as long-term safety and efficacy.