(30-04-06) Science offers new hope for heart attack victims

NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN
HEART attack patients could have their lives transformed following research by Scottish scientists to develop a patch to mend damage caused by a cardiac arrest.
Biologists at Dundee University have succeeded in growing a tube of tissue using cells from newborn rats, which was able to beat like a heart.



Dr Keith Baar, head of functional molecular biology at the university, now hopes to build a similar patch that can be used in humans.
He hopes to begin clinical trials to repair the damaged heart muscles of patients with cardiac problems within the next 10 years.
"They say there are almost 1.5 million people in the UK that have had a heart attack," said Baar. "These people are never going to regain their heart function, which means they cannot do daily activities like walk up stairs and playing with their grandchildren."
Last year, more than 17,000 Scots suffered heart attacks, but while most will have survived, the muscles that drive their hearts will have been irreversibly damaged.
Baar is building on work already being carried out around the globe in the bid to build a patch that can be sewn over the area of dead heart muscles caused by heart attacks.
A patch would save patients from spending the remainder of their lives on medication.
A team in Japan has already produced a thin patch of muscle and implanted it into animals with positive results.
Baar is now aiming to develop a pioneering technique that will allow him to build thicker sheets of muscle tissue suitable for humans by feeding it with oxygen and nutrients through tiny channels between the cell layers.
But the patches made from ordinary muscle will never be a complete replacement for heart muscle as it tires after a period of time. Baar is hoping to harness stem cells found in bone marrow to grow heart muscles for the patch.
The British Heart Foundation has welcomed the research. A spokesman said: "This is research which is at a very early stage, but its potential is very great."


This article:

http://www.scotsman.com/?id=144272006

News

---

In evidenza

"L'informazione presente nel sito serve a migliorare, e non a sostituire, il rapporto medico-paziente."

Per coloro che hanno problemi di salute si consiglia di consultare sempre il proprio medico curante.