Stem Cells repair Limerickmans broken heart

Stephen McNamara from Ballyneety had the operation carried out in the University Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany on March 7.

And the 49-year-old is now doing well and getting ready to return for his three month check-up in the next few weeks.

Stephen explained that he had a triple bypass in 1998 as he has heart disease and had been seriously deteriorating over the past two years.

"I felt like I would have died if I didn’t get the procedure done. I couldn’t get any more bypasses and I was constantly short of breath, couldn’t work and even found it difficult to walk”.

But his wife Eithne, said that her husband is now a "different man completely” since he got the treatment.

She also explained that Stephen could barely walk before getting the treatment and was getting depressed because he was so inactive. However, he is now out walking in the morning instead of being house-bound, according to his wife.

Told that he was the first or second Irish person to get the treatment for heart disease in the German hospital, Mr McNamara said that the procedure was much less invasive than normal heart surgery.

"The main thing is that I wasn’t opened up. They took bone marrow out of my back, separated the cells and then put them in my heart through a catheter. Besides putting the stints into my heart vessels, I was also given heart strengthening medication. All the left side of my heart was damaged by heart disease. And the bone marrow will hopefully help to rejuvenate the heart and take over the diseased part. I was only in hospital for three days as well for the therapy, so there is a much shorter recovery period from this procedure,” said Mr McNamara.

Stem cells are uncommitted cells with the potential to develop into a variety of cell types. They can be obtained from very early embryos (embryonic stem cells) but also from adults, in tissues such as bone marrow, where new cells continue to be generated in adult life.

Stephen has lost six brothers, the youngest being 37, and one sister to hereditary heart disease. And he now has only one brother alive living in England who also suffers from heart disease.

Stephens son, Christopher, researched stem cell therapy on the Internet, after becoming concerned for his father’s declining health. "Stem Cell research is not recommended in Ireland as this practice is still being researched,” Christopher said

"But doctors actually put a heart patient in bigger danger by doing invasive surgery. I agree that surgery may help but there is no long-term cure with heart surgery. In contrast, the insertion of stem cells allows the heart to re-grow blood vessels.

Stem Cells can repair 60 per cent of the heart and isn’t dangerous. Over 400 patients in England alone have had the procedure done and many top scientists and professors have recommenced it.”

Stephen still gets regular check-ups done in the Regional Hospital in Limerick and will probably be on his heart strengthening medication for life, according to his wife.

But Eithne said that "it’s just been a real success as far as we are concerned”. - http://www.limerick.com