Cardiologist changes tune on adult stem cells September 5, 2007

As David sat in the waiting room recently after a scheduled check-up, he was told that the doctor wanted to speak with him. Naturally David was a little alarmed and wondered what could have gone wrong. After all he had a long history of hospitalizations and treatment for his cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease. He was used to hearing depressing news concerning his deteriorating health, but he continued to be hopeful that he could be helped.

The cardiologist came, “Running in with eyes wide,” in David’s words, and said, “David, all of your test results are normal. Not normal ‘for you’, but normal. Your heart has revascularized itself. It has to be the stem cell treatment because the left side of your heart now has a normal blood flow.”

Formerly this cardiologist was at the best doubtful and the David described him as “mostly negative, a real doubting Thomas” about any possible benefits from adult stem cell therapy. “Not any more,” said David.

David’s therapy consisted of having about half a pint of his own blood removed in Bangkok’s prestigious Bangkok Heart Hospital. This blood was flown to Theravitae’s laboratory where the therapeutic stem cells were isolated and multiplied many times before being injected directly into the heart muscle via a small incision in the chest wall.

Not only did David survive the trip half way around the world but he returned home to find, “The peaks were higher and the valley’s not as deep”. He still has problems due to an enlarged heart from cardiomyopathy but he is happy to wait a while longer knowing that his heart now has a richer blood supply compared with before stem cell treatment, so it is working normally rather than struggling. His partner, family and cardiologist share the excitement of proof that adult stem cell therapy has the ability to improve the blood supply to the heart muscle itself.

Millions of coronary heart disease patients will be able to benefit when cardiologists, like this patient’s, change their tune and give them the realistic and proven effective option of adult stem cell therapy instead of a death sentence.

About TheraVitae:
TheraVitae is a private, multinational company focused on using stem cells from the patient’s own blood in order to treat a variety of disorders, especially cardiovascular diseases. The company has developed a proprietary stem cell technology, ‘VesCell’, that is currently being used by hospitals in Thailand and Singapore to treat patients with heart disease and peripheral artery disease.

VesCell — A Natural Treatment for Heart Disease and Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD)
The body has natural ways of healing itself and the cardiovascular system is no exception. Angiogenic Cell Precursors (ACPs) originate in bone marrow and then circulate in the blood vessels. To manufacture VesCell, TheraVitae expands a small number of ACPs harvested from about 250cc of blood into a therapeutic quantity. VesCell is injected either through a coronary artery via catheter, or during surgery, directly into the heart muscle.

A key aspect of VesCell therapy is the advanced cell isolation and expansion technique that allows for the ACPs to be harvested from blood collected in a procedure similar to a common blood donation. VesCell uses a patient’s own adult stem cells to treat Heart Disease and PAD and is a viable therapeutic possibility for heart or PAD patients without any other treatment option.