Surgeons will soon be able to literally mend a broken heart using live tissue grown from a patient's very own stem cells, top cardiologists said.
The whole procedure -- harvesting cells from bone marrow, growing tissue and surgically implanting the heart muscle or valve -- could take as little as six weeks and could become routine within three-to-five years, they reported.
Their findings were published in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B in Britain.
One reason heart attacks are so debilitating, even when they are not fatal, is because the human heart does not regenerate. Damaged tissue stays damaged.
Most problems occur with age, when the heart begins to wear out.
"But the highest medical need for tissue-engineered heart valves is in the treatment of congenital heart malformation," which affects nearly 1 percent of all newborns, Simon Hoeurstrup, lead author of one of the studies, said.
Artificial heart valves currently available must be periodically replaced as children grow, leading to suffering and higher death rates than in adults.
Bio-engineered heart muscle that could be grafted onto a patient's living tissue without fear of rejection by the immune system has long been a holy grail of cardiovascular medicine.
Artificial replacements "do the job and save people's lives," said heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who coordinated the studies. "But they cannot match the elegant, sophisticated functions of living tissues."
While durable, mechanical hardware increases the risk of bacterial infection in the heart's inner lining, as well as abnormalities in blood flow. Recipients must also take medication to prevent blood clots, boosting the chances of internal bleeding and embolisms.
There are currently two broad techniques for making bio-prosthetic heart valves, and both have serious drawbacks.
Animal grafts, especially from pigs, are readily available, but differ in structure and tend to wear out. Human valves from donors work much better, but are in chronically short supply and can easily provoke immune reactions.
In the tissue engineering approach favored by Yacoub and Hoerstrup, the patient's own stem cells -- taken from bone marrow -- are isolated and expanded in the laboratory using standard cell culture techniques.
They are then "seeded" onto a special matrix in the shape of a heart valve that is positioned in a device called a "bioreactor" which tricks the cells into growing in the right shape.
Once mature, the living-tissue heart valves can be implanted in the patient.
This procedure has already been extensively tested in sheep, but several years of follow-up are required before it can be deemed effective and safe, Hoerstrup said.
The Central Election Commission has amended election and recall regulations to require elected office candidates to provide proof that they have no Chinese citizenship, a Cabinet report said. The commission on Oct. 29 last year revised the Measures for the Permission of Family-based Residence, Long-term Residence and Settlement of People from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area (大陸地區人民在台灣地區依親居留長期居留或定居許可辦法), the Executive Yuan said in a report it submitted to the legislature for review. The revision requires Chinese citizens applying for permanent residency to submit notarial documents showing that they have lost their Chinese household record and have renounced — or have never
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 12:37pm today, with clear shaking felt across much of northern Taiwan. There were no immediate reports of damage. The epicenter of the quake was 16.9km east-southeast of Yilan County Hall offshore at a depth of 66.8km, Central Weather Administration (CWA) data showed. The maximum intensity registered at a 4 in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳) on Taiwan’s seven-tier scale. Other parts of Yilan, as well as certain areas of Hualien County, Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu County, Taichung and Miaoli County, recorded intensities of 3. Residents of Yilan County and Taipei received
Taiwan has secured another breakthrough in fruit exports, with jujubes, dragon fruit and lychees approved for shipment to the EU, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency on Thursday received formal notification of the approval from the EU, the ministry said, adding that the decision was expected to expand Taiwanese fruit producers’ access to high-end European markets. Taiwan exported 126 tonnes of lychees last year, valued at US$1.48 million, with Japan accounting for 102 tonnes. Other export destinations included New Zealand, Hong Kong, the US and Australia, ministry data showed. Jujube exports totaled 103 tonnes, valued at
BIG SPENDERS: Foreign investors bought the most Taiwan equities since 2005, signaling confidence that an AI boom would continue to benefit chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market capitalization swelled to US$2 trillion for the first time following a 4.25 percent rally in its American depositary receipts (ADR) overnight, putting the world’s biggest contract chipmaker sixth on the list of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalization, just behind Amazon.com Inc. The site CompaniesMarketcap.com ranked TSMC ahead of Saudi Aramco and Meta Platforms Inc. The Taiwanese company’s ADRs on Tuesday surged to US$385.75 on the New York Stock Exchange, as strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications led to chip supply constraints and boost revenue growth to record-breaking levels. Each TSMC ADR represents
RSS