One of the world’s largest clinical cell therapy trials has begun to enrol 3,000 heart attack patients to provide a more definitive answer to the efficacy of bone marrow cell infusions and whether this experimental treatment prolong the lives of heart attack patients. The BAMI trial, with €5.9m in funding from the [b]European Commission[/b] and conducted in ten European countries, will research the efficacy of bone marrow cell infusions and whether this experimental treatment prolongs the lives of heart attack patients.
But [b]Jalees Rehman, Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at University of Illinois[/b], writing in [s]The Conversation[/s], has questioned the scientific value of the BAMI trial for stem cell research.‘Even if the BAMI trial succeeds in demonstrating that infusion of bone marrow cell mixtures can prolong lives … we will not know whether the tiny fraction of stem cells contained in the bone marrow was responsible for the improvement or whether this effect was due to one of the many other cell types contained in the cell mixtures. For any evidence-based therapy to succeed, it is essential for physicians to know how to dose or modify the therapy according to the needs of an individual patient. This won’t be possible if we don’t even understand how the treatment works.'
[link url=http://theconversation.com/bami-trial-might-provide-bone-marrow-answers-but-it-wont-teach-us-much-about-stem-cells-23687?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+28+February+2014&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+28+February+2014+CID_ac593e612d8f7cc63a8d694b0ae6d174&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=BAMI%20trial%20might%20provide%20bone%20marrow%20answers%20but%20it%20wont%20teach%20us%20much%20about%20stem%20cells]Full report in The Conversation[/link]
[link url=http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01569178]BAMI Trial[/link]