Heart failure is becoming a major problem of public health and it is expected to represent the dominant cardiac disease of this century. Because the death of cardiomyocytes is often responsible for the development of progressive heart failure, cellular transplantation has emerged over recente past years as an attractive alternative therapy. This approach has been stimulated by the recognition in experimental studies that the normal and injured myocardium could be successfully colonized and functionally improved by a variety of contractile cells, mainly skeletal myoblasts. The promising results obtained in an experimental setting triggered the first clinical trial by a French group of myoblast transplantation in previously infarcted myocardium with encouraging preliminary results. Despite the short follow-up and the few patients subjected to this new therapy, cellular transplantation appears as an interesting option in the therapeutic armamentarium for heart failure.
Cell transplantation; Cardiac output, low; Myocardium; Bone marrow cells; Muscle, skeletal
