Fat cells removed from heart attack patients could be re-injected into their chest to help repair the organ, scientists say

Fat removed from a heart attack patient during cardiac surgery could be re-injected into their chest to lower the risk of repeat problems, research suggests.

Scientists think that stem cells in fatty tissue could be extracted and inserted directly into the heart, reducing the chance of future attacks, Daily Mail reported.

The stem cells can improve the functioning of the heart and strengthen crucial arteries and veins, the researchers found.

Besides, the method converts useless tissue into a treatment. And ssing a patient’s own tissue avoids the possibility of their immune system rejecting the stem cells.

Usually most of the fat that is found during open heart surgery is removed to expose the heart and then discarded.

But the new study suggests that the fat could be retained and the useful stem cells isolated and injected back into the heart - all while the patient is still on the operating table.

The research team collected fatty tissue from the chests of 24 patients during cardiac surgery.

It turned out to be relatively simple using standard scientific techniques to isolate a significant number of the useful stem cells from the tissue.

At the moment the process takes several hours, but he hopes in the future it could be done much more quickly, allowing the whole procedure to be done in one operation.

The researchers have not yet tried to reinsert the stem cells back into a human patient.

But their experiments on rats has shown promising results.

They inserted stem cells removed from fat into the hearts of 13 rats suffering from heart failure.

Five other rats received a saline solution with no stem cells.

After six weeks the rats which had received the stem cells showed much further recovery of the heart than those which had received the saline control.

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