In a heart attack, when a blood clot in a clogged artery cuts-off the blood supply to a part of the heart, it leads to scarring of the heart muscle, resulting in reducing the heart’s ability to pump blood efficiently.
 
So far, all doctors have been able to do is try to limit the damage with the help of certain drugs, or by opening up the clogged artery immediately.
 
However, one day it will be possible for a damaged heart to grow its own muscle tissue, with the help of a patient’s own cardiac stem cells.
 
In a first of its kind, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that doctors in Los Angeles this week, gave 39-year-old Ken Milles, a heart attack patient, an infusion of stem cells grown from his own heart muscle.
 
Milles suffered a serious heart-attack mid-May, and was told by doctors that his heart had been permanently damaged, reducing his life span.
 
The construction company employee with a wife and two teen-aged boys to support, decided to participate in a cutting-edge clinical trial at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, one of 24-recent heart attack patients who had volunteered to get an infusion of their own heart stem cells.
 
Stem cells, the body’s master cells are being increasingly used by doctors, as they can transform into different kinds of tissue.
 
Other stem cells types like bone marrow, have been studied with mixed results for heart repair, however, animal studies indicate heart stem cells do a better job.  But, the problem is that the heart has such few stem cells, researchers have no option but to grow more by under local anesthesia, first sending a catheter with little pincers that snip out bits of healthy heart tissue.  This is then sent to the laboratory, and coaxed in to manufacturing as many as 25,000,000 stem cells, which grow spontaneously from the specimens.  Eventually, forming into clusters called ‘cardio-spheres’, they even begin to beat in the dish, and within 4 to 6-weeks, one can have millions of stem cells.
 
A few days ago, doctors went back up Ken Milles’ artery and deposited his own laboratory-grown stem and support cells into the damaged area of his heart, in the hope it will repair itself and begin pumping blood effectively.
 
It will be 6-months before doctors know if Milles’ heart has repaired itself, and with sufficient funding clinical trials should be completed within three to four years.