2001 Transplants from a patient's own bone marrow could be used to repair scarred hearts within three years. Two teams of researchers in New York announce today that in separate experiments stem cells from adult bone marrow turned into heart tissue and restored the heart's ability to pump blood.
Heart attacks are the leading cause of death in the western world.
There are more than a million each year in the US, and 300,000 in Britain. More than a third are fatal. The New York transplant experiments worked only in laboratory rats and mice. But if the treatment succeeds in humans, it could repair damaged hearts, get patients back on their feet and save tens of thousands of lives every year. The apparent ability of stem cells in the bone marrow of adult animals to rebuild the heart reveals nature's remarkably flexible response to disease.