Cardiac Stem Cell Repair Therapy: A Clinical Perspective

摘要

The potential for using stem cell and gene therapies to repair or regenerate cardiac tissues poses a formidable challenge which has generated a great deal of interest, and indeed, excitement in the cardiological community.1"8 The traditional paradigm that the heart is a terminally differentiated organ and that as myocytes are lost, they cannot be replaced, is being challenged.8 The possibility that the heart is a self-renewing or at least, repairable organ, in which a pool of resident cardiac stem cells, together with stem cells from extracardiac sources, continuously regenerates new myocytes, is intriguing. This notion is highly controversial and is currently the focus of intense investigation and much speculation.