RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: The traditional treatment methods for ischemic heart disease can temporarily relieve pain and improve the quality of life, but cannot restore and regenerate the myocardial tissue. Stem cells have been reported to possess the potential functions of tissue regeneration and multiplex differentiation characteristics which provide a new opportunity for the ischemic heart disease treatment. Because of the unique advantages of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells including easy separation, no immune rejection reaction, no ethical dilemmas and remarkable immunomodulatory effect, umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells have been considered as one of the most ideal candidate seeds for the treatment of ischemic heart disease. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical efficacy of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells transplantation in patients with ischemic heart disease in 3-year followup. METHODS: From January 2013 to June 2016, eight patients with coronary heart disease were admitted to the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University and randomly divided into stem cell transplantation group and control group. Four patients in the stem cell transplantation group received conventional treatment and intravenous infusion of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells. Four patients in the control group only received conventional treatment. At 3 years after treatment, cardiac function indexes, biochemical indexes and ST segment changes of electrocardiogram lead II were evaluated in two groups. All patients signed the informed consent. The experiment was approved by the Ethics Committee of First Hospital of Hebei Medical University. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Patients in each group were alive after 3 years. Compared with the control group, left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular fraction shortening displayed an increasing trend in the stem cell transplantation group (P > 0.05). The changes of left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular fraction shortening indicated an important statistical improvement in the stem cell transplantation group compared with the control group (P 0.05). ST segment changes of different electrocardiogram leads were various before and after treatment in both groups. This study can only show that human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells can improve the cardiac function of patients with ischemic heart disease to a certain extent, but there is no significant improvement in the classification of cardiac function, biochemical indicators, and the influence on electrocardiogram leads is not clear. Thus, the significance of this treatment method needs further study.