The Heart Surgery Forum, Volume 7, Issue 4

Intramyocardial CD34+ Cell Transplantation Combined with Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Hiroshi Nagamine, MD, Go Watanabe, MD, Shintarou Shiobara, MD, Hirofumi Takemura, MD, Sadahiko Arai, MD, Shigeyuki Tomita, MD

Department of General and Cardiothoracic Surgery and Division of Transfusion Medicine, Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa, Japan

ABSTRACT

This report describes a new therapeutic approach for severe ischemic heart disease, intramyocardial transplantation of autologous bone marrow-derived CD34+ cells combined with off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). CD34 is widely known as a cell surface antigen expressed on hematopoietic stem cells, and recent experimental studies have shown that CD34+ cells include endothelial progenitor cells. We used the Isolex 300i magnetic cell selection system to separate CD34+ cells from bone marrow cells. This report describes the first case treated with the combination of offpump CABG and cell transplantation for therapeutic angiogenesis and myocardial regeneration. The transplantation of autologous bone marrow-derived CD34+ cells improved perfusion of the ungraftable ischemic area.

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