WebMD Medical News Daniel J. DeNoon Laura J. Martin, MD March
17, 2011 -- Decade-old heart attack scars healed after being
injected with stem cells from a patients' own bone marrow. So
far, eight patients have received the experimental treatment in
an ongoing clinical trial. All eight had suffered heart attacks
an average of 5 1/2 years prior; one of the patients had his
heart attack 11 years earlier. "These are chronic heart failure
patients ... with really bad [heart attack damage] and big
[heart attack] scars," study leader Joshua Hare, MD, tells
WebMD. "We wanted to see if the cells would heal the scarred
area and allow it to start working again." They do, at least
according to early results from a study under way at the
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Hare's team
enrolled eight men at an average age of 57 who had heart attacks
four months to 11 years earlier. All had dangerously enlarged
hearts, with areas of scar tissue from their heart attacks. The
researchers harvested bone marrow proge