Pelvic bone stem cells could help preserve heart function
WASHINGTON: Scientists, including an Indian- origin, have revealed that stem cells from the pelvic bone may help the heart beat stronger. Doctors and other clinicians at the
Orlando Health Heart Institute are researching the use of stem cells from pelvic bone marrow to restore tissue and improve heart function after muscle damage from heart attacks. ” The thought is the body may use itself to heal itself,” Vijaykumar S. Kasi, principal investigator of the study, said. ” Because stem cells are immature cells they have the potential to develop into new blood vessels and preserve cardiac muscle cells. By infusing certain stem cells into the area of the heart muscle that has been damaged from a heart attack, tissue can be preserved and heart function restored,” Kasi said. The PreSERVE- AMI Study, sponsored by Amorcyte, LLC, a NeoStem, Inc. company, is for patients who have received a stent to open the blocked artery after a specific heart attack history.
The study evaluates the effectiveness and safety of infusing stem cells collected from a patients bone marrow into the artery in the heart that may have caused the heart attack.
About 160 patients will participate in this national study at approximately 34 sites. The infusion procedure begins with a catheter inserted through an incision in the groin. An Xray camera is used to guide doctors in positioning the catheter in the heart artery where the stent was placed.
Egg donors donalt39t hurt own chances of later pregnancy
WASHINGTON: Women who donate their eggs are not harming their chances of becoming pregnant later, a new study has revealed.
Out of a group of 60 women who had donated eggs, 54 later became pregnant within a year of trying to conceive, and three more women became pregnant within 18 months of trying to conceive, all without reproductive assistance, the findings showed. The remaining three women in the study became pregnant with the help of fertility treatments. For two of these women, the treatments were needed due to fertility problems in their male partner.
Women who donate eggs are treated with hormones that ramp up their ovariesalt39egg production, and previous studies had suggested that fertility problems might follow in the wake of these hormone treatments, according to the study.
However, these previous studies had flaws in their design, so a more robust look at the issue was needed.
The question of how egg donation may affect future fertility is important not only for those who donate eggs to others, but also for women considering freezing their eggs to delay childbearing, the researchers said. In the new study, researchers asked 194 women who had donated eggs at a fertility centre in Belgium questions regarding their attempts to become pregnant.
