Quality of Life (QOL) improvement following catheter-based autologous bone marrow mononuclear cell transplantation (ABM-MCT)

Background

We have reported a pilot study of ABM-MCT to areas of ischemic myocardium [1], and in humans at 8 weeks follow-up after ABM-MCT ACC'03. The purpose of this study was to assess whether the changes in the QOL in patients with end-stage ischemic heart failure (ESIHF) submitted to catheter-based ABM-MCT persists in the 6 month follow-up.

Methods

A prospective assessment of the QOL before and 8 and 24 weeks after ABM-MCT guided by the NOGA system, targeting hibernating myocardium in ESIHF, using the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36. The cardiac evaluation included Canadian Cardiovascular Society class, VO₂max on the treadmill test, ejection fraction and end systolic volume on two-dimensional echocardiogram and total reversibility defect on MIBI-SPECT.

Results

There were 14 patients (two females). The changes in parameters 8 and 24 weeks after the procedure are presented in Table 1. According to these objective data we observed a QOL improvement, based on the scores of Minnessota varying from 46 ± 19 to 30 ± 17 (P = 0.002) at 8 weeks and to 18 ± 14 (P = 0.003) at 24 weeks, and an increase of all eight dimensions of the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 as presented in Table 2.

Table 1 :

Table 2 :

Conclusion

The data suggest that ABM-MCT can improve the QOL of patients with ESIHF. Prospective studies with a greater number of patients will be necessary to confirm these initial data.