Stem cells to help treat coronary artery disease
One in two older Australians have coronary artery disease and heart disease is still the number one cause of premature death and disability.
Heart disease is difficult to treat because heart tissue doesn’t recover well from injury. When someone has a heart attack, the tissue scars and the heart can’t produce new cells to replace the damaged ones.
However, a surgical team at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne has managed to grow cardiac muscle that spontaneous beats and could be used to patch up a damaged heart. This could help avoid the problems of rejection.
It could take five to 10 years for any of this potential to translate into treatments.
