When someone has chronic venous insufficiency, it means that because of faulty valves in their leg veins, oxygen-poor blood isn’t able to be pumped back to their heart. The George Washington University’s Dr. Narine Sarvazyan has created a possible solution, however – a beating “mini heart” that’s wrapped around the vein, to help push the blood through.
The mini heart takes the form of a cuff of rhythmically-contracting heart tissue, made by coaxing the patient’s own adult stem cells into becoming cardiac cells. When one of those cuffs is placed around a vein, its contractions aid in the unidirectional flow of blood, plus it helps keep the vein from becoming distended. Additionally, because it’s grown from the patient’s own cells, there’s little chance of rejection.
via Gizmag
