(LifeWire) - After a heart attack, patients and their doctors work to preserve as much heart function as possible. Among emerging treatments, one in particular -- a single injection of the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) just after an attack occurs -- may help reach this goal by limiting heart attack damage and bolstering healing.
Artificial EPO
Natural EPO is produced in the kidneys and helps oxygen absorption there. An artificial form of EPO was developed about two decades ago. Since then, scientists have discovered that other organs might benefit from its ability to stimulate the production of red blood cells, the cells that carry oxygen in the blood. More recently it has been suggested that EPO can limit heart cell death after a heart attack, and can even stimulate the growth of new blood vessels.
Artificial EPO was first used to treat anemia in desperately ill kidney failure patients. But EPO has also been found to benefit the brain.
Promising Uses for EPO
Research in the 1990s established that it offered promise for brain injury patients, especially premature babies. Newer studies have focused on EPOs potential to help limit damage after heart attacks (known technically as myocardial infarctions).
More than 920,000 Americans suffer heart attacks each year and 157,000 die.
EPO Helps Grow Blood Vessels
Using rats as subjects, scientists have found that delivering one dose of EPO into a blood vessel within hours of a heart attack helps reduce the extent and seriousness of the attack, limiting cell death and damage to the left ventricle. In the weeks and months after the attack, the hormone also helps establish cell growth and the creation of new blood vessels (called vasculogenesis). The new vessels help increase circulation to the entire cardiac region.
In a 2007 article in the European Heart Journal, scientists report that EPO-treated rats benefited from a 42% increase in capillary growth and a significant boost in the growth of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). EPCs are bone marrow-derived cells that travel throughout the bloodstream and change into the types of cells that line healthy blood vessels.
Read more here about how to survive a heart attack.
Treating Heart Failure With EPO
Uses for EPO when the heart fails after a heart attack, which affects 5.3 million Americans and kills more than 284,000 annually, are also being examined. Heart failure has many causes, including previous cardiac damage, but it always results in a heart unable to beat as efficiently as normal. The patient is weakened and quality of life sinks.Scientists are not sure how EPO might improve patients after heart attack, but early results in rates seem promising: Their poorly functioning heart functions less poorly over the long-term when EPO has been given.
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Belonje, Anne M.S., Rudolf A. de Boer, and Adriaan A. Voors. "Recombinant Human EPO Treatment: Beneficial in Chronic Kidney Disease, Chronic Heart Failure, or Both?" Cardiovascular Drugs Therapy 22:1(2008) 1-2. 4 Nov. 2008 <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2243255>.
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Westenbrink, B. Daan, Erik Lipsic, Peter van der Meer, Pim van der Harst, Hisko Oeseburg, Gideon J. Du Marchie Sarvaas, Johan Koster, Adriaan A. Voors, Dirk J. van Veldhuisen, Wiek H. van Gilst, and Regien G. Schoemaker. "Erythropoietin Improves Cardiac Function Through Endothelial Progenitor Cell and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Mediated Neovascularization." European Heart Journal 28:16(2007) 2018-2027. 5 Nov. 2008 <http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/16/2018>.
