[Myocardial implantation of muscle cells]

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CELL THERAPY: The stakes in the management of heart failure have become such that new therapeutic strategies have to be developed. Among the cell, molecular and genetic approaches aimed at reinforcing the deficient heart muscle by restoring its functional potential, cell therapy is the favored option in clinical application perspectives. IN THE FIELD OF ISCHEMIC HEART FAILURE: All the experimental data have shown that implantation of contractile cells in the post-infarction areas led to improved cardiac function. INTERESTING PRELIMINARY RESULTS: For ethical and immuno-biological reasons, the successful transplantation of autologous skeletal myoblasts has led our team to conduct a phase I clinical trial. Although the results of this study are preliminary with regard to cardiac function, they suggest the validity of the cell transplantation concept and allow one to hope that this new treatment method will have its place among the therapeutic arms of heart failure.