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World J Cardiol. Oct 26, 2015; 7(10): 665-670
Published online Oct 26, 2015. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v7.i10.665
Role of platelet-rich plasma in ischemic heart disease: An update on the latest evidence
Eleftherios Spartalis, Periklis Tomos, Demetrios Moris, Antonios Athanasiou, Charalampos Markakis, Michael D Spartalis, Theodore Troupis, Dimitrios Dimitroulis, Despina Perrea
Eleftherios Spartalis, Periklis Tomos, Demetrios Moris, Antonios Athanasiou, Charalampos Markakis, Dimitrios Dimitroulis, Second Department of Propedeutic Surgery, Athens University Medical School, “Laiko” Hospital, 11527 Athens, Greece
Michael D Spartalis, Department of Cardiology, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, 17674 Athens, Greece
Theodore Troupis, Department of Anatomy, Medical School, University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece
Despina Perrea, Laboratory of Experimental Surgery and Surgical Research “N.S. Christeas”, Medical School, University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Eleftherios Spartalis, MD, MSc, PhD, Second Department of Propedeutic Surgery, Athens University Medical School, “Laiko” Hospital, Vasilissis Sofias 49, 11527 Athens, Greece. eleftherios.spartalis@gmail.com
Telephone: +30-069-74714078 Fax: +30-210-7456972
Received: May 25, 2015
Peer-review started: May 27, 2015
First decision: June 18, 2015
Revised: July 7, 2015
Accepted: September 7, 2015
Article in press: September 8, 2015
Published online: October 26, 2015
Processing time: 161 Days and 16.7 Hours
Abstract

Myocardial infarction is the most common cause of congestive heart failure. Novel strategies such as directly reprogramming cardiac fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes are an exciting area of investigation for repair of injured myocardial tissue. The ultimate goal is to rebuild functional myocardium by transplanting exogenous stem cells or by activating native stem cells to induce endogenous repair. Cell-based myocardial restoration, however, has not penetrated broad clinical practice yet. Platelet-rich plasma, an autologous fractionation of whole blood containing high concentrations of growth factors, has been shown to safely and effectively enhance healing and angiogenesis primarily by reparative cell signaling. In this review, we collected all recent advances in novel therapies as well as experimental evidence demonstrating the role of platelet-rich plasma in ischemic heart disease, focusing on aspects that might be important for future successful clinical application.

Keywords: Platelet-rich plasma; Ischemic heart disease; Myocardial infarction; Myocardial regeneration; Cardiac repair

Core tip: Tissue regeneration requires precise coordination among endothelial, epithelial and mesenchymal morphogenesis. Growth factor-induced angiogenesis plays a key role in recovery from ischemic disease and organ regeneration. Recent studies show that stem-cells and PRP together have opened new horizons in the myocardial infarction treatment.