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Editorial comment

Myocardial regeneration by stem cells: still a black box

Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Medical Center, Hugstetter Str. 55, 79106 Freiburg, Germany

Received 24 March 2008; received in revised form 24 March 2008; accepted 25 March 2008.

^_* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 761 270 7220; fax: +49 761 270 7220. (Email: claudia.heilmann@uniklinik-freiburg.de).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The comprehensive stem cell research of the last two decades has fertilized the hope for myocardial regeneration. Research in the cardiac field has been spurred by the observations that, in contradiction to former predications, there is a proliferation of cardiomyocytes in the full-grown heart and that there are indeed cardiac progenitor cells inside the myocardium and in the peripheral blood even in the adult. Myocardial proliferation and differentiation of progenitor cells occur on demand and depend on a favorable milieu.

Attempts with direct injection of stem cells into the damaged myocardium have been limited by the low number of surviving cells. In parallel, the importance of paracrine effects of stem cells and other cell types which . . . [Full Text of this Article]