A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that a type of immunotherapy -; similar to that approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat inflammatory conditions such as arthritis -; also may be an effective treatment strategy for heart failure. The study is published Oct.
23 in the journal Nature . After a heart attack, viral infection or other injury to the heart, scar tissue often forms in the heart muscle, where it interferes with the heart's normal contractions and plays a leading role in heart failure, the progressive loss of the heart's ability to pump sufficient blood to the body. This chronic condition creates a worsening feedback loop that can only be slowed with available medical therapies, but it has no cure.
Studying human tissue samples as part of the new study, the researchers identified a type of fibroblast cell in the heart as the main culprit responsible for the formation of scar tissue in heart failure. To see if they could prevent scar formation, the scientists turned to mouse models of heart failure that have the very same type of fibroblasts. They used a therapeutic protein -; called a monoclonal antibody -; that blocks the formation of this harmful type of fibroblast, and succeeded in reducing the formation of scar tissue and improving heart function in the mice.
After scar tissue forms in the heart, its ability to recover is dramatically impaired or impossible. Heart failure is a growing problem in the .