Texas Heart Institute researcher, Emerson Perin MD, PhD revealed that heart patients who were treated with bone marrow-derived adult stem cells died at a significantly lower rate that those who did not receive stem cells. Dr. Perin’s scientific findings represent yet another positive step in the ongoing fight against heart disease.
Dr. Perin is the Director of Clinical Research for Cardiovascular Medicine and Medical Director for the Stem Cell Institute at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Texas. Dr. Perin’s study showed that patients treated with stem cells were 90% less likes to die from an adverse cardiac event than patients who were not treated with stem cells.
“We obtained remarkable results from our study in which we injected stem cells derived from the bone marrow of a healthy donor into patients with heart failure. Heart function and exercise capacity improved in some cell-treated patients. Most importantly, cell therapy significantly reduced cardiac adverse events, including death. Three of 15 (20%) control patients died of cardiac causes, whereas only 1 of 45 (2%) cell-treated patients had a cardiac-related death. Despite the small numbers, our findings showed that cell therapy significantly improved cardiac mortality,” said Dr. Perin.