Potential clinical benefits of cell therapy in coronary heart disease: an update

Prevention is the only chance to reduce morbidity and mortality from myocardial infarction (MI), and current therapies cannot restore the lost cardiac muscle tissue. In addition, human heart has a very limited regenerating potential, and common strategies aimed at preventing MI events are not always effective (1). Moreover, the only cure for patients with advanced heart failure (HF) is heart transplantation (2). Therefore, it is necessary to develop innovative therapies to repair the damaged cardiac muscle and improve the quality of patients’ life. This goal could be reached by applying cell therapy, the essence of regenerative medicine, to coronary heart disease (CHD). So far, several preclinical and clinical studies have been pursuing this strategy, which implies the transplantation of autologous stem or progenitor cells into the damaged myocardium in order to restore the lost function