Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5b
Cell Sheet-Based Myocardial Patches
Yutaka Terajima, Yuji Haraguchi, Tatsuya Shimizu, Masayuki Yamato,
and Teruo Okano
Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science,
Tokyo Women's Medical University, 8-1 Kawada-cho,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan
yterajima@abmes.twmu.ac.jp
5b.1 Introduction
Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the
developed world. Despite substantial advances in medical and
device therapies for heart failure, there are few that can repair large
scar areas or regenerate the myocardium. Heart transplantation is
currently the only option for severe heart failure patients who cannot
recover by conventional therapy; however, there are currently not
enough donor hearts to transplant, in addition to the problem of
immune rejection. New ventricular-assist devices are being applied
clinically, but treatment is limited by complications such as bleeding,
thromboembolism, infection, and device fracture. To overcome
these problems, new therapies for myocardial insufficiency using
regenerative medicine are expected in the near future.
