This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Anversa, P. Articles by Leri, A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Anversa, P. Articles by Leri, A. Pubmed/NCBI databases Medline Plus Health Information Heart Diseases Related Collections Other myocardial biology Other heart failure Animal models of human disease Acute myocardial infarction

(Circulation. 2007;115:829-832.)
© 2007 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

Piero Anversa, MD; Jan Kajstura, PhD; Annarosa Leri, MD

From the Cardiovascular Research Institute, Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla.

Correspondence to Piero Anversa, MD, Cardiovascular Research Institute, Vosburgh Pavilion, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595. E-mail piero_anversa@nymc.edu

Key Words: Editorials • myocardial infarction • stem cells • tissue therapy

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

If I can stop one heart from breaking

— -Emily Dickinson 1

In the Ode to Broken Things, Pablo Neruda tenders a powerful metaphor of existence.² It is not difficult to recognize the unwinding of human life in the broken clock that was once "the secret thread of our weeks" and now, with its "blue guts" exposed and its "wide heart unsprung," is the symbol of agony and death. The beginning and ending of life are embraced in a poem about simple and ordinary things that accompany human beings throughout life and then are lost, together with the feelings and significance that were assigned to them. All things break, even the heart. What to do for broken things and broken hearts? The poet suggests collecting our treasures and sinking them in the ocean with the hope that the "long labor of its tides" may give back wholeness to the fragments. While we wait for the sea to reveal its strength and miraculous effects, the discovery that stem cells repair broken organs projects a more hopeful view of medicine and the way it is practiced.

Article p 896

Soon after the first experimental evidence that bone marrow cells (BMCs) induce cardiac repair in the postinfarcted heart,³ unfractionated mononuclear BMCs and CD34-positive cells were given to patients affected by acute myocardial infarction or chronic ischemic heart failure.^4,5 Results accumulated so far have documented the feasibility of this therapeutic approach with indications of potential beneficial effects on cardiac function and critical clinical . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. J. Gersh, R. D. Simari, A. Behfar, C. M. Terzic, and A. Terzic Cardiac Cell Repair Therapy: A Clinical Perspective Mayo Clin. Proc., October 1, 2009; 84(10): 876 - 892. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]