Cardiac Stem Cell-based Regenerative Therapy for the Ischemic Injured Heart — a Short Update 2017

Cell therapy for the ischemic injured heart has been largely investigated in the last two decades, and most of the small cohort and randomized clinical studies, as well as meta-analyses led to the conclusion that cell-based human regenerative therapy is safe and effective in term of reducing adverse clinical outcomes and increasing left ventricular performance. Both the in vitro and in vivo rodent animal models of ischemic heart failure using bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells promised marvelous success in regeneration of the heart suffering from ischemic burden. However, in certain patient groups, stem cell studies failed to reach the primary endpoint, showing no effect of this regenerative therapy. This brief overview addresses the contradictory results between human cardiac regenerative studies and the very positive rodent experiments.