RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Transplants could become unnecessary if scientists can repair damaged organs with reprogrammed stem cells Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:06 am | |
| Every few seconds someone, somewhere has a heart attack - many of them fatal. During an attack, the heart remodels itself and dilates around the site of the injury to try to compensate, but these repairs are rarely effective. If the attack does not kill you, heart failure later frequently will.
''No matter what other clinical interventions are available, heart transplantation is the only genuine cure for this,'' says Paul Riley, professor of regenerative medicine at Oxford University. ''The problem is there is a dearth of heart donors.''
Transplants have their own problems: successful operations require patients to remain on toxic, immune-suppressing drugs for life; and their subsequent life expectancies are not usually longer than 20 years.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/how-to-mend-a-broken-heart-20130130-2dkxl.html#ixzz2JXgSwBAe
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