According to a study from the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago and the Northwestern University Feinberg Heart Institute, the immune response and lymphatic system are central to the heart’s repair process after a heart attack. . The findings were published in Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Find the good and bad macrophages for heart damage
‘New insights into the underlying mechanisms of cardiac repair are the first step towards developing new treatments to preserve cardiac function.’
Macrophages, or immune cells that rush to the heart after a heart attack to ‘eat’ damaged or dead tissue, also produce vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGFC), which triggers the formation of blood vessels. new lymphatic vessels and promote healing..
The challenge now is to find a way to administer the VEGFC or attract these macrophages to produce more VEGFCs, to accelerate cardiac repair.
People who have had a heart attack have an increased risk of heart failure, even with advances in medicine to reduce mortality. This occurs in part because some macrophages that arrive at the site of injury are proinflammatory and do not produce VEGFCs.
Good macrophages produce VEGFCs and ‘bad’ macrophages do not. We need to stop the ‘bad’ macrophages from causing further damage.
Researchers are working to understand more about the progression of heart failure after a heart attack, to intervene early and re-establish heart repair.
Source: Medindia
