ISSN: 1755-5310 (Electronic)1755-5302 (Print)

Interventional Cardiology

Heart Regeneration Open Access Articles

Cardiomyocytes in the adult human heart appear to turn over at a very low rate, estimated at 0.5–1% per year. The low rate of cardiomyogenesis is not sufficient to compensate for the enormous loss of cells after injury such as myocardial infarction. Animal data suggest that the low turnover rate results from proliferating cardiomyocytes rather than differentiation of resident or invading cardiac progenitor cells into cardiomyocytes. While scientifically interesting in a general sense, the question of whether and, if yes, how the heart regenerates has important therapeutic implications, because even little regenerative capacity offers means for therapeutic augmentation. Such regenerative approach would constitute a paradigm shift as current therapies can slow down the progression of heart failure in early stages, but fail to reverse it. End-stages of the disease are essentially therapy-refractory, leaving heart transplantation (Tx) and implantation of left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) the only therapy options. Tx faces donor organ shortage and immunological long-term complications, LVAD time-dependent complications. Though the effectiveness and safety of the latter has seen dramatic improvement with a 1-year mortality of patients with LVADs of only 20%, the overall prognosis of patients with acute decompensated heart failure remains grim with a 1-year mortality of >30% plus 16% Tx or LVAD.  

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