VOA常速英语2016--心力衰竭患者有望逐步医治（在线收听）

心力衰竭患者有望逐步医治

A stem cell treatment for patients experiencing heart failure significantly improved their heart function in a small but promising new study. In heart failure, the heart loses its ability to efficiently pump blood. It is most often caused by a heart attack, which destroys some of the muscle tissue essential to a normal heartbeat. In this new study, patients were injected with adult stem cells taken from their own hearts. These are a special kind of undifferentiated cell found throughout the body that helps to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found. Doctors use a measure called 'ejection fraction' to describe the heart's ability to pump blood. Study author Dr. Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisville says people in the control group showed no significant improvement in that measure. But he called the improvement in the stem cell patients "striking." At four months, the pumping ability of the heart was markedly improved. The ejection fraction increased by eight points at four months, and at one year it increased by 12 points. Now, this is a huge increase, much greater than what we even hoped for when we started our study. And Bolli says there was a significant improvement in the ability of the stem cell recipients to exercise. The study participants also got MRI scans before and after treatment. A year after getting the stem cells, the images showed a 30 percent reduction in the scars of dead heart muscle. The reduction of the scar implies that new heart muscle is being produced to replace that scar. And so it is evidence that the stem cells are regenerating new heart muscle. This ongoing study is very small, with just 16 patients in the stem cells group, plus seven more in the control group. But a commentary published with his paper says Bolli's findings "raise new optimism" because of the study's rigorous quality and unexpectedly good results. Bolli published his findings in The Lancet and presented them at the American Heart Association meeting in Florida. Also at that Heart Association meeting: another report of stem cell research, though with less promising results. In a study published in the journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, researchers gave recent heart attack victims stem cells taken from their bone marrow. The idea was to prevent the onset of heart failure. Earlier studies had suggested the technique might work. But in this case, after six months there was no improvement in heart function. That’s today’s health brief. This is Paul Chan reporting.

一则新的研究显示，对心力衰竭患者采用干细胞治疗法可极大提升患者的心脏功能，前景广阔。所谓心力衰竭，就是心脏泵血功能失效。心力衰竭通常是由心脏病发作造成，会损坏心肌组织，导致心脏无法正常跳动。在这则新研究中，患者被注入了自己的心脏干细胞。这些取自患者身体各处的干细胞，彼此之间并无差异，但其特殊性在于可以帮助患者维护并修复其同源组织。医学上用“射血分数”来表示心脏泵血能力。这则研究的发起者是路易斯维尔大学的罗伯托，他表示，实验对照组患者的射血分数并无明显改善。但干细胞的改善“惊人”。四个月的时候，心脏的泵血能力就有显著提升。数据显示，射血分数在四个月时提升了4点，一年后上升了12点。如今看来，这是巨大的提升了，比我们在实验之初所希望的还要好。罗伯特还说，注入了干细胞的心脏病患者，心肌能力有显著提升。参加该研究的患者在治疗前后都进行了磁共振成像。注入干细胞一年后，患者心肌坏死的疤痕减少了30%。疤痕减少的事实表明患者生成的新心肌代替了疤痕处的坏死心肌。所以这证明干细胞可以再生新心肌。这项研究规模较小，目前干细胞实验组仅有16名患者，实验对照组还有7名患者。但罗伯特研究结果的摘要中称，该研究由于颇有成效而“为心力衰竭患者带来了新的希望”。

罗伯特将研究结果发表在《柳叶刀》上，并在佛罗里达州举行的美国心脏协会会议上进行了阐述。在这次会议上，还有一则干细胞研究出现，虽然其前景广阔性不如罗伯特的研究。这则研究结果发布在了美国医学会杂志上，其研究内容是为心脏病患者注入其骨髓细胞。这个想法的初衷是为了防止患者发生心力衰竭。前期的一些研究表明这一方法可能奏效。不过在这则研究中，患者的心肌功能并没有在六个月后有所改善。以上就是今天的健康简报。我是保罗，感谢您的收听。