Current Status of Stem Cell Therapy in Heart Failure

One of the major unsolved issues in the cardiac sciences is the problem of heart failure. Heart failure is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. In the past two decades, various types of stem cells have been proposed as a unique method of regenerating cardiac muscle. Early successes in preclinical models as well as early nonrandomised studies raised hopes that have been belied by later trials which have often had disappointing results. To this must be added the issues arising from uncovering of poorly conducted studies with biases. This has led to much confusion and it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. This short review evaluates the evidence as it stands today and examines the possibility of using regenerative methods mediated by stem cells in order to highlight the developments for general surgeons.