Emerging Therapies for Congestive Heart Failure

The treatment of atherosclerotic heart disease has improved remarkably over the last several decades; however, the outlook for patients with symptomatic congestive heart failure with reduced ejection fraction remains bleak. Current drug therapies target the neurohormonal activation that accompanies congestive heart failure, but do not address the fundamental pathology inherent in this condition—the loss of contractile capacity. Stem cell therapies offer the possibility of rectifying this deficiency and normalizing left ventricular dimensions and cardiac performance by regenerating novel contractile tissue, thereby reversing the negative remodeling that portends progressive left ventricular dysfunction, worsening symptoms, and ultimately cardiogenic shock. Here we review the promise of stem cell therapies in the treatment of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, the current state of clinical developments, and briefly comment on the future of the field.