Pluripotent stem cell therapy for cardiac regeneration

Heart failure is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for more than 800,000 deaths per year on average equivalent to 1 death every 39 s (Members et al. 2012). Each year, nearly 6 million patients die from heart failure in the United States. Regardless of its clinical significance, current therapies, including surgical and pharmacological interventions, are only capable of delaying the progression of this detrimental disease (Lopez et al. 2006). Particularly, myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the major causes of mortality, and in cases where it does not lead to sudden death, it damages a majority portion of myocardium of the heart leading to a condition in which almost half of affected patients die within 1 year from the onset of symptoms due to diminished cardiac contractile function to below a critical threshold (Jessup and Brozena 2003).