Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Used for Cellular Cardiomyoplasty As a Way To Treat Myocardial Infarction and Heart Failure

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Two of these diseases are heart failure and myocardial infarction. In America alone, there are about 6.2 million people with heart failure, and every 40 seconds, a patient with a heart attack is recorded. Myocardial infarction, known as a heart attack, occurs after the blocking or occlusion of a coronary artery, disabling the delivery of oxygenated blood to regions of the heart. Heart failure, usually occurring after ischemic diseases like myocardial infarction, is where the heart loses the ability to pump a sufficient blood supply to meet the body’s needs. The major ways of treating heart failure and myocardial infarction today are either too expensive or hard to come by, so a new sort of treatment is direly needed. Cellular cardiomyoplasty, a form of cell therapy, is being looked into as a new way to treat these two and other cardiomyopathies. Additionally, though there have been a few cells that have shown a possibility of use for cardiomyoplasty, this review focuses on mesenchymal stem cells, specifically called mesenchymal stromal cells. The purpose of this review is to look into what cellular cardiomyoplasty is, how it may be used in the future, and how mesenchymal stromal cells have shown potential to be used for it.