By Daily Mail

London – A pioneering stem cell treatment for patients suffering from heart failure could help them avoid surgery.

It could offer new hope for the 750 000 British patients with the most severe form of heart failure who rely on external machines to pump blood around the body to stay alive.

The groundbreaking treatment involves a single injection of 150 million adult stem cells into the heart, triggering it to generate new cells.

A new trial of the therapy is being carried out in the US on 120 patients and, if successful, could be on the market in six years.

Compared to the invasiveness of transplants or machines, the procedure is remarkably simple – stem cells are taken from the bone marrow of a healthy adult donor under local anaesthetic in a half-hour procedure.

Highly-purified stem cells, called Mesenchymal Precursor Cells (MPCs) are then manufactured, which act by releasing chemicals to regenerate heart tissue.

It means the treatment, patented by Australian firm Mesoblast, can be used “off-the-shelf”.

The study being carried out is in collaboration with the US National Institutes of Health and will take place at 20 US hospitals.

Source:    Daily Mail