Percutaneous transplantation of skeletal myoblast in the treatment of post-infarction injury

Cell therapy may be a potentially attractive approach to restore myocardial contractile performance after an infarction injury. Multipotent stem cells are currently being studied as a possible cell source for myocardial repair within the first few days after the infarction onset in non-revascularizable areas of the left ventricle having viable myocardium. In the presence of fibrotic post-infarction scar with no detectable myocardial viability, direct myocyte precursors, i.e. myoblasts, are being considered as a potential source of new muscle fibres. We review the current clinical experience with transplantation of the autologous skeletal myoblasts in patients with post-infarction heart failure, focusing on percutaneous cell transplantations performed as a sole procedure.