Stem Cell Therapy in Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Pot of Gold or Pandora's Box

Table 3

Animal experiments demonstrating myocardial generation with BMSCs.

Study	Findings
Tomita et al. 1999 [90]	Transplantation of autologous bone marrow cells to stimulate angiogenesis in the recipient ischemic myocardium. Functional improvement was observed only in recipients of the mesenchymal stem cells that had been treated with 5-azacytidine.
Orlic et al. 2001 [71]	Haematopoietic stem cells injected were demonstrated to occupy the infarcted region and resulted in extensive myocardial regeneration.
Jackson et al. 2001 [8]	The engrafted SP cells (CD34(−)/low, c-Kit(+), Sca-1(+)) or their progeny migrated into ischemic cardiac muscle and blood vessels, differentiated to cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells, and contributed to the formation of functional tissue.
Kocher et al. 2001 [11]	Systemic infusions of human bone marrow-derived endothelial cell precursors were able to intercept the remodeling process of the left ventricle. The observed neovascularization prevented apoptosis of hypertrophied myocytes reducing collagen deposition and subsequent scar formation. Posttransplantation ventricle function improved as well.
Orlic et al. 2001 [72]	That mobilization of animal’s own bone marrow with G-CSF before and after myocardial infarction in mice resulted in growth of new cardiomyocytes in the infarct zone, improved ventricular function, and substantially decreased mortality by 68%.