The Regenerative Medicine for Heart Failure: From Transplant Therapy to In Vitro Study

Abstract

Heart transplantation, the most critical treatment method for severe heart failure, has an extremely serious shortage of donors. Although a new transplantation bill has been passed, it is expected to be difficult spread as a highly versatile treatment method in Western countries. On the other hand, for the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), since the waiting period for transplantation is long in Japan, complications such as infectious diseases and cerebral thrombosis greatly influence the results. To overcome this situation, expectations for regenerative medicine are increasing worldwide, and there is an urgent need to develop new treatments to replace heart transplantation and LVAD. Therefore, research on cell transplantation, tissue transplantation, and regenerative drug discovery using regenerative medicine methods to treat severe heart failure is progressing, as well as their clinical application. In this paper, along with the translational research of myoblast sheets, we will introduce heart failure treatment using iPS cell-derived cardiomyocyte sheets, introduce disease-specific iPS cells, and outline new heart failure treatment using regenerative medicine technology.