Heart attacks remain one of the leading causes of death and disability around the world. Thanks to modern emergency treatments, many people now survive a heart attack, but survival is often only the beginning of a long recovery.
One of the biggest problems is that the damaged heart muscle heals by forming scar tissue, and too much scarring can weaken the heart and eventually lead to heart failure.
Heart failure does not mean the heart has stopped working. Instead, it means the heart cannot pump blood as well as it should. People with heart failure may become tired, short of breath, and unable to carry out everyday activities. Once heart muscle is replaced by scar tissue, it cannot return to normal, making prevention especially important.
Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new biological treatment that aims to reduce this harmful scarring. Rather than treating heart failure after it develops, the new approach tries to stop the damage while the heart is healing after a heart attack.
The treatment is designed to be given during balloon angioplasty, a common emergency procedure used to reopen blocked heart arteries. Doctors would deliver the therapy directly into the damaged coronary artery while restoring blood flow to the heart.
The new medicine is made from donated human bone marrow. Scientists grow special stromal cells in the laboratory and collect tiny natural particles called exosomes that the cells release. Exosomes carry biological signals between cells and help control how the body responds to injury.
The researchers found that these exosomes appear to calm excessive inflammation after a heart attack. Instead of allowing inflammatory cells to continue producing scar tissue, the exosomes encourage them to switch into a healing mode. In animal studies, this reduced scarring and helped preserve heart function over time.
The treatment was tested in both small animal models and pigs, where it showed encouraging protective effects. The researchers now hope to begin a clinical trial in people to determine whether the same benefits can be achieved safely in patients.
The team also developed a new PET imaging method that can show active scar-forming cells inside the heart. This imaging technique allows doctors to see whether the scarring process is still continuing long after the heart attack.
Early observations from an ongoing clinical study suggest that some patients continue to develop active scarring for months, while others heal much more quickly. In the future, doctors may be able to use these PET scans to identify people at highest risk and offer treatment before heart failure develops.
The study was published in Cell Stem Cell. Although the results are exciting, the treatment has not yet been tested in large clinical trials, so it is still too early to know whether it will become part of routine care.
Even so, combining a targeted anti-inflammatory therapy with advanced PET imaging represents an important step toward personalized treatment after heart attacks and could eventually benefit patients with stroke, organ transplants, and other inflammatory conditions.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease, and coconut sugar could help reduce artery stiffness.
For more information about health, please see recent studies that Vitamin D deficiency can increase heart disease risk, and results showing vitamin B6 linked to lower death risk in heart disease.
Source: Uppsala University.
