Five-year results of intracoronary infusion of the mobilized peripheral blood stem cells by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor in patients with myocardial infarction

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the long-term effects of peripheral blood stem cell therapy in myocardial infarction (MI) patients.

Methods and results: A total of 163 patients with MI who were successfully revascularized with drug-eluting stents were enrolled and randomly assigned to four groups: acute MI (AMI) cell infusion, AMI control, old MI (OMI) cell infusion, and OMI control. We compared 5 years' clinical outcomes between the cell infusion group (57 and 22 patients with AMI and OMI, respectively) and the control (60 and 24 patients with AMI and OMI, respectively). In the time-sequence comparison from baseline to 6 and 24 months follow-up after AMI, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging was significantly improved in the cell infusion group (n = 57), but not in the control group (n = 60). In the between-group comparison, the difference in improvement of LVEF for 2 years after AMI did not reach statistical significance between cell infusion and control groups. Intriguingly, the major adverse cardiac events for 5 years were significantly reduced in the cell infusion group (n = 79) compared with the control (n = 84; composite of cardiac death, non-fatal MI, hospitalization for heart failure and angina, and target vessel revascularization; 22.8 vs. 39.3%, P = 0.015).

Conclusions: Peripheral blood stem cell therapy has potential to improve long-term cardiovascular outcomes in MI patients.