Phase III Study on STem cElls Mobilization in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Post infarction heart failure (HF) remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality. In the United States, more than three million patients, and 700.000 in Italy, have cardiac failure and its most common cause is ischemic heart disease. The major goal to improve post infarction LV function would be the stimulation of neovascularization and the enhancement of regeneration of cardiac myocytes within the infarcted area. Recent experimental studies suggest that bone marrow-derived progenitor cells (BMCs) or circulating endothelial progenitor cells (cEPCs) contribute to the regeneration of infarcted myocardium, to enhance neovascularization of ischemic myocardium, to prevent cardiomyocyte apoptosis, to alter scar formation by reducing the development of myocardial fibrosis and, thereby, to improve cardiac function.

G-CSF is a hematopoietic cytokine produced by monocytes, fibroblasts and endothelial cells. G-CSF is known to have multiple functions in normal, steady-state hematopoiesis. It is routinely used to mobilize CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells from the BM into peripheral blood, thus enabling their easier collection compared to BM aspirate procedure. The proven efficacy and safety of G-CSF, both in healthy donors and patients with haematological disease, along with favourable results from studies of CD34+ cell transplantation in patients with MI or ischemia, suggest that G-CSF based BMC transplantation may have an efficacy in patients with MI.