There was a lot of noise about bone marrow pleuripotent immature cells infused to encourage regeneration of heart muscle recently.
The idea is to keep people who have suffered a heart attack from losing so much muscle they end up with heart failure.
This is a report that says the work is still in progress with this report not so good.
Bone Marrow–Derived Mononuclear Cells for Acute Myocardial Infarction
Eur Heart J 2014 Feb 25;[EPub Ahead of Print], B Assmus, DM Leistner, V Schächinger, S Erbs, A Elsässer, W Haberbosch, R Hambrecht, D Sedding, J Yu, R Corti, DG Mathey, C Barth, C Mayer-Wehrstein, I Burck, T Sueselbeck, T Dill, CW Hamm, T Tonn, S Dimmeler, AM Zeiher
Research · March 06, 2014
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In this 5-year follow-up of the REPAIR-AMI trial, which evaluated the effect of implantation of bone marrow–derived stem cells compared with placebo in patients with STEMI, bone marrow cell injection was not associated with improved outcomes in terms of mortality or hospitalization for heart failure. However, there was a trend toward benefit in the patients who received bone marrow cells.
The results indicate at the least the safety of bone marrow cells in this setting and support this as an area for further research.