In one of the largest heart disease studies in the United States conducted at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, showed that using the patient’s own stem cell could greatly treat his heart problem and reduce the risk of developing heart related diseases in the future.

Transplanting a potent form of adult stem cells into the heart muscle of subjects with severe angina results in less pain and an improved ability to walk, also, subjects who received the transplant had fewer deaths than those who didn’t.

What Is Angina?

Angina is chest pain or discomfort that occurs when an area of your heart muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen-rich blood. Angina may feel like pressure or squeezing in your chest. The pain also may occur in your shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back. It can feel like indigestion.

The researchers directly injected whats called “CD34+ cells” into the patient’s heart in order to boost the growth of small blood vessels that make up the microcirculation of the heart muscle. The researchers believe that those blood vessels are the main source of pain and sever Angina.

“This is the first study to show significant benefit in pain reduction and improved exercise capacity in this population with very advanced heart disease,” said principal investigator Douglas Losordo, M.D., the Eileen M. Foell Professor of Heart Research at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a cardiologist and director of the program in cardiovascular regenerative medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the lead site of the study.

After the transplant, the research subjects were able to walk on a a treadmill, and they had fewer episodes of chest pain.

Via – NorthWestern.