SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

- Death and heart failure following acute myocardial infarctions can be prevented with one procedure

- The world's only safe and proven myocardial regeneration treatment

  A groundbreaking treatment to prevent death and heart failure in myocardial infarction patients developed by Korean researchers following 15 years of research has been selected as an innovative medical technology and will finally be adopted in actual medical practice.

 

  The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently established a new health technology assessment committee to evaluate the Magic Cell Therapy, and came to the conclusion that it was safe and offered the potential to be an effective myocardial regeneration procedure. As such, Magical Cell Therapy was selected as an innovative medical technology.

 

  Professor Hyo-Soo Kim’s team composed of researchers from the Cardiovascular Center at Seoul National University Hospital (Hyun-Jae Kang, Han-Mo Yang, Jung-Kyu Han, Ji-Hoon Kang, and Yoo-Jung Ki) has been working to develop a cell therapy to treat myocardial infarctions (Magic Cell Therapy) using autologous peripheral blood stem cells since 2002. They conducted a clinical study with multiple phases over a period of 15 years using a total of 500 patients and randomly assigned control groups. The research team published 18 academic articles in some the world's top scientific journals such as The Lancet, Circulation, and European Heart Journal, earning Magic Cell Therapy recognition from experts around the world for its safety and effectiveness.

 

  In the event of a myocardial infarction, an emergency surgery of the coronary arteries is performed to open up the blocked vessels and allow the blood flow to resume. However, because of the ischemic shock experienced while the blood flow is cut off, and the reperfusion shock arising after the blood flow is resumed, cardiac muscle cells continue to die slowly over the following four weeks even after stent procedure, resulting in myocardial scarring. Magic Cell Therapy allows to save the dying cardiac muscle cells by injecting the patient's own peripheral blood stem cells into the infarction area during the four-week period after the onset of infarction.

 

  When someone suffers an acute myocardial infarction, every hospital performs an emergency coronary artery stent surgery to open up the blocked coronary artery. Magic Cell Therapy is performed immediately after the surgery during the four days of hospitalization. Following the emergency coronary artery stent surgery, cytokine is injected below the skin over the next three days in order to induce bone marrow stem cells to mobilize to the peripheral blood. Then on the fourth day, stem cells are collected from the patient’s peripheral blood and injected directly into the myocardial infarction via the coronary arteries using a catheter in order to realize myocardial regeneration. Professor Hyo-Soo Kim's team has developed the world's only cytokine-based cell therapy, which is ingeniously easy and does not require the painful procedure of bone marrow aspiration, instead making use of autologous peripheral blood.

 

Magic Cell Therapy

① When someone suffers an acute myocardial infarction, every hospital performs an emergency coronary artery stent surgery to open up the blocked coronary artery. Magic Cell Therapy is performed immediately after. In other words, ② G-CSF and Erythropoietin cytokines are injected below the skin over the next three days in order to induce bone marrow stem cells to mobilize to the peripheral blood stem cells. ③④ On the fourth day, stem cells are collected from the peripheral blood using a blood sampling device. ⑤ Immediately after, the collected stem cells are injected into the myocardial infarction via the coronary arteries using a catheter. ⑥ Cardiac muscle cell death is stopped and postinfarction scarring reduced, preventing cardiac failure and improving the patient's motor ability.

  Upon analyzing the recovery progress of patients who received Magic Cell Therapy, it turns out the mortality rate within a year after the onset of a myocardial infarction was 4.3% and the incidence of cardiovascular events was 13%, a significant 50% reduction compared to patients who did not receive Magic Cell Therapy. Furthermore, it has been shown that vascular endothelium regeneration of the stent insertion site resulted in additional benefits such as the prevention of in-stent restenosis and stent thrombosis. The research team said it was the only cytokine-based cell therapy in the world which reduces myocardial necrosis while also preventing cardiac failure and even decreasing the recurrence of coronary stents.

                                                                                                     

  Acute myocardial infarction is the disease with the second highest death rate in South Korea after cancer. It accounts for 80% of all sudden deaths, and about half of the patients die before arriving at the hospital. Even patients who are fortunate enough to receive emergency treatment are at high risk of dying within the next year because their damaged cardiac muscles could not be regenerated due to the limits of currently performed emergency coronary stent implantations.

 

  “Magic Cell Therapy has been recognized as an innovative medical technology and introduced to actual medical practice, proving to be a breakthrough opportunity in lowering the death rate and heart failure rate of myocardial infarction patients,” said Professor Hyo-Soo Kim as he explained the significance. “The cost of the procedure will be about 4 million won, which includes the cost of cytokine materials, the cost of using a sampling device, and the cost of stem cell injection procedures. Compared to other cell therapies which can cost up to 20 million won and which are being commercialized without their efficacy having been properly verified, Magic Cell Therapy boasts a remarkable cost effectiveness. The procedure must be performed within the four weeks following the onset of acute myocardial infarction in order to save the dying cardiac muscle cells and preserve cardiac function. In other words, it’s a once in a lifetime chance. 4 million won is a small price to pay considering it can prevent all the suffering associated with cardiac insufficiency one has to suffer for the rest of their life. It is of vital importance to protect the function of the heart which one needs to go on living the rest of their life, and Magic Cell Therapy makes this possible with just one procedure,” he explained.