Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Varying patients may present to their clinician or the emergency department for treatment with heart failure. It is important to understand that there is more than one type of heart failure; primarily the focus is placed on diastolic heart failure and systolic heart failure. Depending upon the cause of heart failure and what areas are affected dictates the treatment plan needed. While there are similarities with both kinds of heart failure, there are also differences that can help the clinician distinguish the diagnosis needed to fit the patient. Once a diagnosis is made the clinician can move forward in determining if the patient is at risk for use of diuretics and then look towards prescribing ACEIs, ARBs, and beta-blockers.

Patients presenting Symptoms: Gradual onset of dyspnea on exertion, fatigue, frequent dyspepsia with nausea and occasional epigastric pain, trouble breathing while lying on his back and, which is relieved by sitting up (orthopnea), an hypertension.

The stem cells were engineered from typical skin cells. This technique means that heart patients would not have to worry about rejection. Their new hearts would be made of their own cells.

stem cells. Any damage to tissues or organs can be grown again, including heart muscles to fix

Through more research, dilated cardiomyopathy has been found to have a genetic component (MacRae, 2010). Though there have been families who have volunteered to be screened, there are still some 40 chromosomal loci and potential disease genes discovered so far. The reason for the wide range of variants of potential loci is due to how prevalent the disease is in families. For example, the more individuals who have been diagnosed with the disease, researchers were then able to find similar loci among the affected; whereas, the families who had fewer affected individuals laid a wider range of

Stem cells have the ability to grow heart cells, which can further lead to new discoveries in medicine. A team of scientists researching stem cells “has grown the earliest form of human heart cells from embryonic stem cells and found a way to direct them into the three major cell types found in the human heart”. This demonstrates the morality of stem cells because they can develop into a helpful tool to grow heart cells. Furthermore, the experiment’s goal is that “[the] lab created cells could be used to grow new heart tissue or repair heart muscle damage” (Ogilvie, 1). If people continue to put their hope in the benefits of stem cell research, then eventually it will be able to not only just grow heart cells but the tissue itself.

A few individuals with coronary illness and diabetes have gotten trial medications taking into account foundational cells disconnected from grown-up tissue, frequently from bone marrow, with shifting degrees of achievement. These mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, can develop into a few tissues including muscle, bone, ligament and fat yet there is no ensure that they will develop into heart muscle. This will left us with the answer to many people around the world why and how stem cells are stored.

It is too early to have a direct answer at the moment since this is a new idea but there are several scientists conducting research with these mesenchymal stem cells, and are even attempting to improve on how they are applied. In a study by the Bio Med Research International, they focused on hosting these stem cells on RKKP glass coated titanium (Ledda). They chose titanium specifically due to how often titanium is used for implants and they aim to find a way to transfer the implant while fixing any damaged tissue in the process. In previous attempts to utilize stem cells, the cells themselves are often put into a buffer solution and then injected (Ledda). In this study, however, they used a different approach, “due to the limited survival of stem cells suspended in a buffer, the engraftment rate may be improved by using a supporting matrix such as a scaffold or a hydrogel” (as cited in

In order to obtain relevant information to support this topic, databases including PubMed, Medline, UpToDate, and Google Scholar were used. Terms used in each search included and combined the following: mesenchymal stem cell, cardiac stem cells, HF, heart repair, ejection fraction, cardiac output, cardiac index, mortality.

Cardiomyopathy (i.e. "heart muscle disease") is the failure of the heart muscle - myocardium for whatever reason and there are many different reasons. Cardiomyopathy may be dangerous since victims of this disease are at risk of certain cardiac rupture as well as irregular heartbeat. In fact, Cardiomyopathy is one of, if not the most, dangerous disease that is connected to the heart. (Adelmann 2010).

After patients have gone through heart disease, like any other injury, therapeutic steps must be taken. Therapy and rehabilitation of damaged hearts has been improved through the utilization of stem cells. Therapy includes strengthening of the damaged area as to prevent the incident from reoccurring and getting the patient back to their normal life. Scientists, again, used rats that had had induced myocardial infarctions. This

Umbilical cord mesenchymal cells would be isolated from Wharton’s jelly of babies born by c-section with the mother’s consent. The umbilical cords would be placed in Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution containing penicillin, streptomycin sulfate, and amphotericin B. The umbilical cord would be washed in alcohol and phosphate-buffered saline. With the amnion and blood vessels removed the left over umbilical cord would be chopped up into 5mm diameter pieces and placed into 35x10mm petri dishes. The umbilical mesenchymal cells would be cultured as per Yousefifard et al.’s methods. Excess blastocysts that would otherwise be discarded during in-vitro fertilization were collected from a local fertility clinic with full informed consent of the mothers. The embryonic stem cells would be then isolated from the inner mast cells of those blastocysts. These embryonic stem cells would then be cultured and differentiated into neural stem cells as per Nicoleau et al.’s methods. To ensure the identities of both cell types their surface antigens were checked using flow

The liver is known in the medical community as a miracle organ because is it the only known organ in the human body that can regenerate itself if half of it is cut out. Tissue regeneration has always been a desirable fantasy, but now it is almost a possibility. Human embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells that, although unspecialized, can differentiate into various specialized cells, such as nerves, muscle, skin, or even blood. Sadly, controversy surrounds this relatively new scientific concept and it threatens to destroy the potential of this discovery before scientists even have a chance to study it thoroughly. Human embryonic stem cell research should be permitted to advance due to the potential of being able to treat or cure diseases, and the additional knowledge that the scientific community can gain about human development.

“Through the isolation and manipulation of cells, scientists are finding ways to identify young, regenerating ones that can be used to replace damaged of dead cells in diseased organs. This therapy is similar to the process of organ transplant, only the treatment consists of the transplantation of cells rather than organs. The cells that have shown by far the most promise of supplying diseased organs with healthy cells are called stem cells.” (Chapter Preface)

In fact, TTC is not even in the top three most common types of cardiomyopathy. The most common type is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (or HCM). People with HCM have a heart muscle that is excessively thick and prone to scarring. This process makes the muscle stiff, which causes blood-pumping difficulties. The second most common subgroup is dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). This occurs when the pumping chambers of the heart enlarge, which makes the muscle thin and weak. Many people with DCM have breathing problems due to the fluid build-up in their lungs. The third most common type of cardiomyopathy is arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), where heart muscle cells are replaced by scar tissue and fat cells. All three of these instances are