Road Block? Go Around! Adult Stem Cells Used to Create New Routes for Blood Flow

Arteries are like busy highways that shuttle nutrients and oxygen to tissues in the body. Lifestyle factors and heredity may form fatty-plaque-roadblocks, narrowing the coronary arteries – small blood vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle – depriving the heart of blood.

As a result, a person may become short of breath, have chest pain (angina) and may suffer a heart attack. Myocardial ischemia, commonly known as coronary heart disease, affects more than 13 million people in the United States and is the leading cause of death.

Today, physician-scientists from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center are researching novel ways to re-route blood to the heart using supplies from the patient's own body: adult stem cells.

"It sounds like science fiction, but if this study is proven successful, the future use of these stem cells may be to reinvigorate cardiac muscle in patients with dying or weakened heart tissue," says Dr. S. Chiu Wong, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and principal investigator of the clinical trial at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. "Traditionally, these patients would need a heart transplant."

The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia study is the first Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability and safety of CD34+ stem cells, which are harvested from the study participant's blood, to improve myocardial ischemia.

The researchers believe that this therapy may someday be ideal for patients who have already tried traditional methods, but have had little success in alleviating their symptoms. Such traditional methods include angioplasty, stents or coronary artery bypass surgery. Only individuals who fit this profile may take part in the study to receive stem cell injections. (For enrollment information, see below.)

CD34+ stem cells are primarily found in the bone marrow and umbilical cord. They are hematopoietic stem cells, which means that they have the potential to differentiate into multiple types of cells in the circulatory system, including cells that form the small blood vessels. The researchers hope that these cells can act like construction road-workers to create new routes for blood flow to the heart.

The subject's stem cells are harvested using a system developed by Baxter Healthcare Corporation – the sponsor of the study. All subjects receive subcutaneous injections of a protein called Neupogen that helps release blood-forming CD34+ stem cells from the bone marrow into the bloodstream.

Once the stem cells are collected from the subject's own blood, cardiologists implant the cells (or placebo) into areas of the heart receiving poor blood flow, using an experimental catheter system developed by Johnson & Johnson.

"This will represent another tool that cardiologists have to treat those patients that are currently untreatable, and have angina during exertion and at rest," says Dr. Wong. "If proven successful, this procedure may improve the quality of life for those patients who are suffering because of constant pain."

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center is also a site for the clinical trial.

To find out if you are eligible to enroll in the study, please contact Ms. Marissa Goldberg at (212) 746-3290.

Disclosure: Dr. Wong is a member of Cardiology Opinion Board and a Consultant of Cordis, of Johnson & Johnson.

For media inquiries please contact Andrew Klein at 212-821-0560 or ank2017@med.cornell.edu