NEW HOPE FOR HEART FAILURE PATIENTS

IN2003, businessman Ian Rosenberg, then 67, was told his failing heart condition was so serious that he had just two months to live. A pioneering treatment called cardiac stem-cell therapy offered a slim ray of hope, but it was only available in Germany. Ian had the treatment privately and lived until August 2006.

During his extra lease of life, Ian and his wife Jenifer Rosenberg set up the Heart Cells Foundation to raise money for more trials of this groundbreaking therapy. The success of the HCF Regenerate trials led to the first Compassionate Treatment Programme, headed by consultant cardiologist Professor Anthony Mathur at London’s St Barts. This will offer stem-cell therapy to patients for whom there is no further option.

Heart failure is caused by the heart muscle becoming too weak or stiff to pump enough blood around the body at the right pressure.

Over the past decade, Professor Mathur’s team has conducted four clinical trials in people ‘to understand whether the use of a patient’s own stem cells [not embryonic stem cells, which have led to controversy] can repair the damage that causes the heart to pump weakly. We have demonstrated an improvement in the pumping action and [apparent] benefits that include better quality of life and reduced symptoms,’ he says.

Heart failure is a growing problem worldwide and the Barts team is keen to progress to larger ‘phase 3’ clinical trials, which will hopefully show that cardiac stem-cell therapy prolongs life and improves symptoms.