After severe heart failure, the ability of the heart to heal by forming new cells is very low. However, after receiving treatment with a supportive heart pump, the capacity of a damaged heart to repair itself with new muscle cells becomes significantly higher, even higher than in a healthy heart.
This is according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal Circulation.1
The ability of the human heart to renew itself by regenerating its muscle cells, myocytes, is very limited. But what happens to this capability when the heart is damaged by severe heart failure has been unknown.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now discovered that after an injury, the rate of cell renewal is even lower than in a healthy heart. Standard-of-care for patients with advanced heart failure is a surgically implanted pump that helps propel blood, a so-called left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
Kick-start the repair mechanism
Surprisingly, the researchers found that patients with such a heart pump, who have shown significant improvement in their heart function, can regenerate heart muscle cells at a rate more than six times higher than in healthy hearts.
“The results suggest that there might be a hidden key to kick-start the heart’s own repair mechanism”, says Olaf Bergmann, senior researcher at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet and last author of the paper. The mechanism behind the effect is still unknown and there is not yet any hypothesis to explain it.
“It is difficult to say. In the existing data we cannot find an explanation for the effect, but we will now continue to study this process at a cellular and molecular level,” says Olaf Bergmann.
The findings open the possibility of developing new therapies for patients with serious heart conditions that stimulate the heart’s ability to repair itself after damage. This way, patients wouldn’t have to rely only on heart transplants or other kinds of long-term mechanical support.
“This offers some hope that the recovery after a heart incident can somehow be boosted,” says Olaf Bergmann.
Reference
1. Wouter Derks, et al. A latent cardiomyocyte regeneration potential in human heart disease, Circulation, online 21 November 2024, doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.067156.
