Japan hospital performs first surgery using iPS-derived heart cells

A hospital in Japan has carried out the world’s first surgery using commercially available sheets of heart muscle cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, one of the surgeons involved said. The sheets were transplanted into the heart of a woman in her 50s during an hour-long operation on Tuesday. The procedure was performed after the regenerative therapy received conditional government approval in March.

Yoshiki Sawa, head of Osaka Keisatsu Hospital and one of the surgeons, said the team hoped the treatment would improve the patient’s quality of life. The therapy is designed mainly for patients with heart disease who have exhausted other treatment options. Trials involving the treatment were conducted on eight patients with ischaemic heart disease, which results from damage caused by narrowed heart arteries.

Japanese media reported that all eight experienced an easing of symptoms, while four showed improved heart function. The technology was developed by Sawa in collaboration with Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who received the 2012 Nobel Prize for research into induced pluripotent stem cells. These cells are created by returning mature, specialised cells to a more juvenile state and can develop into different cell types.

The treatment is expected to improve heart muscle function, heart-failure symptoms, cardiac performance and exercise tolerance. Sawa’s team plans to carry out similar operations on 75 patients by 2033 and report on the therapy’s effectiveness. The treatment is expected to undergo further assessment over the next seven years before full authorisation.

Japan also conditionally approved an iPS-cell treatment for Parkinson’s disease in March following a successful clinical trial.