Aims: We sought to evaluate the efficacy of intracoronary infusion of selected bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) in patients with remote, anterior non-viable MI by the use of tissue Doppler imaging.
Methods and results: We infused selected CD133+ and CD133-CD34+ BMSCs in 10 patients enrolled in the study. Peak systolic strain rate, maximum strain during the cardiac cycle (epsilon(max)), strain during ejection time (epsilon(et)), and post-systolic strain (epsilon(ps)) were measured. Peak systolic strain rate (-0.69 +/- 0.2 vs. -1.15 +/- 0.27, P = 0.001), epsilon(max) (-9.87 +/- 3.30 vs. -15.57 +/- 5, P = 0.006), and epsilon(et) (-7.45+/-2.86 vs. -10.92 +/- 4.45, P = 0.015) improved significantly during the rest study 6 months after cell infusion. Low-dose inotropic challenge also showed significant improvement of longitudinal deformation indices in the follow-up study. Global ejection fraction did not improve significantly after cell therapy.
Conclusion: Intracoronary infusion of selected BMSCs in patients with remote, anterior, non-viable myocardial infarction is safe and leads to improvement of longitudinal deformation indices 6 months after the infusion.