心力衰竭患者有望逐步醫治

　　7月8日VOA聽力：心力弱竭患者有望慢慢治療

　　A stem cell treatment for patients experiencingheart failure significantly improved their heartfunction in a small but promising new study. Inheart failure, the heart loses its ability to efficientlypump blood. It is most often caused by a heartattack, which destroys some of the muscle tissueessential to a normal heartbeat. In this new study,patients were injected with adult stem cells taken from their own hearts. These are a specialkind of undifferentiated cell found throughout the body that helps to maintain and repair thetissue in which they are found. Doctors use a measure called 'ejection fraction' to describethe heart's ability to pump blood. Study author Dr. Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisvillesays people in the control group showed no significant improvement in that measure. But hecalled the improvement in the stem cell patients "striking." At four months, the pumpingability of the heart was markedly improved. The ejection fraction increased by eight points atfour months, and at one year it increased by 12 points. Now, this is a huge increase, muchgreater than what we even hoped for when we started our study. And Bolli says there was asignificant improvement in the ability of the stem cell recipients to exercise. The studyparticipants also got MRI scans before and after treatment. A year after getting the stem cells,the images showed a 30 percent reduction in the scars of dead heart muscle. The reductionof the scar implies that new heart muscle is being produced to replace that scar. And so it isevidence that the stem cells are regenerating new heart muscle. This ongoing study is verysmall, with just 16 patients in the stem cells group, plus seven more in the control group. Buta commentary published with his paper says Bolli's findings "raise new optimism" because ofthe study's rigorous quality and unexpectedly good results. Bolli published his findings inThe Lancet and presented them at the American Heart Association meeting in Florida. Also atthat Heart Association meeting: another report of stem cell research, though with lesspromising results. In a study published in the journal of the American Medical Association,JAMA, researchers gave recent heart attack victims stem cells taken from their bone marrow.The idea was to prevent the onset of heart failure. Earlier studies had suggested thetechnique might work. But in this case, after six months there was no improvement in heartfunction. That’s today’s health brief. This is Paul Chan reporting.

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