Heart repair with stem cells 'biggest breakthrough in a generation'

Researchers found that on-going weakness caused by a heart attack could be improved with an injection of one million stem cells.
The cells were taken from healthy areas of the patients’ own hearts, the first time this has been done.
The researchers from Harvard Medical School and University of Louisville said it could represent ‘the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime’.
There are one million people in Britain suffering with heart failure, caused when areas of damage to the heart muscle cause it to weaken and beat less efficiently. It causes breathlessness and fatigue and current treatments are only aimed at easing the symptoms rather than repairing the damage to the heart.
Dr Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisville and Dr Piero Anversa at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston conducted the study, published in The Lancet medical journal and presented at the American Heart Association’s annual scientific meeting in Florida.