Stem cell therapy for heart patients – Tuncay Delibasi

Congestive heart failure or heart attack is one of the primary causes of mortality and morbidity. Advanced stage patients have an average 5-years survival rate whereas the annual mortality rate is 40-50%.

Stem cell treatment is gradually reducing the fatal cardiovascular issues by 80% with less damaged hearts and a higher level of inflammation among the adults.

Tuncay Delibasi – a member of stem cell therapies and ethics committee in Turkey during 2011-2015 to evaluate such cardiovascular human clinical stem cell applications successfully.

The heart muscle depends on the steadily flowing oxygen-rich blood. It keeps the heart pumping continuously. The interruption of blood flow by artery blockage causes a heart attack. Over time, the symptom can lead to heart failure. The damaged portion of the heart stops pumping blood efficiently. So, the heart patients may need to go through lifelong maintenance therapy to make the heart work efficiently.

Previously, heart transplantation has been the only surgical treatment for advanced heart failure patients. However, the treatment has a lot of limitations – the scarcity of donors is the most important factor among them. The death rate gets higher during the prolonged waiting period for the organ donor.

Stem cell potentiality:

It’s a new cardiovascular treatment for chronic heart patients – has all the potential to

• develop into all types of heart cells.
• Can regenerate and repair damaged heart tissue.

According to a research paper, 17 cardiovascular patients were treated with stem cells collected from their own hearts. One year after the procedure, the scar tissue got shrunk by 50%.

Tuncay Delibasi has conducted more than 20 international clinical stem cell trials as a principal investigator.

The goal of stem cell treatment is to re-populate the myocardium with healthy cells that are capable to restore constant blood flow, to improving the systo-diastolic function. The new cells will have the capability to promote revascularization.