Intrapulmonary Administration of Autologous Bone Marrow Derived Mononuclear Cells in Congenital Heart Disease Complicated by Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: A Case Report

Abstract

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating, progressive disease with increasingly debilitating symptoms that leads to right heart failure and ultimately death if untreated. We suggest that intrapulmonary delivery of autologous bone marrow derived mononuclear cells (BMMC-s) could be beneficial for patients with severe PAH. We report on a patient with congenital heart disease (CHD) complicated with severe PAH, who received intrapulmonary autologous BMMC transplantation. For the examination of the results we used scintigraphy during the periods of 6, 14 and 27 months after cell transplantation and documented clinical and radiographical alleviation of PAH sypmtoms. The obtained results suggest that intrapulmonary BMMC transplantation could serve as a new therapeutic option or supplemental therapy for deteriorating PAH, particularly in cases, when conventional therapeutic strategies have failed to provide the control of the disease.