As per a study, which has been published in the Lancet medical journal, it has been revealed that stem cell has great potential to act as a regenerative treatment for patients who have received severe heart attacks. The Caduceus trial was conducted with the enrollment of 25 heart patients who have received heart attack and all were above 53 years of age.

The total group was randomly divided into two, and 17 volunteers were given coronary artery infusions in which 12 to 25 million stem cells were taken from their body. Other group was asked to undergo post heart-attack care.

After one year, a great amount of improvement was seen among patients who had received stem cells derived treatment, while no improvement was seen among those who underwent post heart attack care. Till now, the first phase has got over and they have received great success, but they will need to perform further experiments to know more about the efficacy of stem cell treatment.

Professor Eduardo Marban, who is Director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles and was involved in the study, affirmed that earlier they conducted similar trials in animals. The success rate in animals was great, and they expected similar or little less success ratio in humans. However, they were stunned to see that humans have responded quite better to stem cell treatment than it was shown by animals.

"This discovery challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, scar is permanent and that, once lost, healthy heart muscle cannot be restored”, said Marban. Welcoming the success of the first phase of the study, Professor Jeremy Pearson, who is Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, told that it is especially great news for heart patients who are at high risk to suffer heart failure.