Improvement of cardiac function by transplanting autologous mononuclear bone marrow cells into myocardial infarction scar and the periphery

Objective To test the therapeutic effectiveness in cardiac function after transplanting mononuclear bone marrow cells(BMCs)into myocardial infarction scar and its periphery.Methods Myocardial infarction was induced by cryoinjury in 16 rabbits.Four weeks after cardiac cryoinjury generation,16 rabbits were equally assigned for cell transplantation and control.Twenty-four hours before cell transplantation,under general anesthesia,bone marrow was aspirated from the right thigh bone.MN-BMCs were isolated.An 1.5 mL suspension containing 1.1×107 to 7.2×107 mononuclear BMCs was injected into the infraction scar and its periphery under direct visualization.In the control group,the rabbits received the same volume of IMDM culture media.Transthoracic echocardiography was performed to observe the changes of regional and global cardiac function 4 weeks after cardiac cryoinjury and cells transplantation,respectively.Results No difference was observed on baseline of cardiac function between the 2 groups before MN-BMCs transplantation.In MN-BMCs group,4 weeks after cell transplantation,infarction wall thickness was increased(P0.05);regional wall motion of the infarction scar had also improved(P0.05).The relative reduction of left ventricular end-diastolic diameters and end-systolic diameters were found;Left ventricular ejection and shorting fraction were increased in the MN-BMCs group,respectively(P0.05).On the contrary,in the control group,compared with the baseline data,4 weeks after IMDM culture media injection,infarction wall thickness was decreased(P0.05);regional wall motion of the infarction scar also became weakened(P0.05).The relative extension of left ventricular end-diastolic diameters and end-systolic diameters were found,respectively(P0.05);left ventricular ejection and shorting fraction decreased in the control group,respectively(P0.05).Moreover,the hearts with transplanted cells had better regional and global function than in the control group.Four weeks after cell transplantation,infarction wall thickness was increased [(4.81±0.55)mm vs(3.94±0.54)mm,P0.05];regional wall motion of the infarction scar had also improved [(8.20±0.77)cm/s vs(7.00±0.56)cm/s,P0.05,(8.51±0.93)cm/s vs(6.75±0.57)cm/s,P0.05];The relative reduction of left ventricular end-diastolic diameters and end-systolic diameters were found,LVDD was(14.89±1.36)mm vs(16.24±1.31)mm(P0.05),LVSD was(10.48±1.32)mm vs(12.29±1.48)mm(P0.05);left ventricular ejection and shorting fraction were increased,LVEF was(65.25±5.73)% vs(57.00±5.81)%(P0.05),LVFS was(30.25±3.73)% vs(24.88±3.95)%(P0.05).Conclusions These findings indicate that transplantation of total and unfractionated bone marrow is appealing because of its apparent simplicity and therapeutic effectiveness in improving cardiac function.