Here’s one of Steve Myrah’s problems: He is such a huge fan of the University of Wisconsin basketball team that games, literally, are painful to watch, causing his angina to flare up and forcing him to pop nitroglycerin tablets to ease his chest pain.
Last week, he became the first heart patient in Wisconsin to enter a novel stem cell clinical trial using patients’ own cells to treat their heart disease.
Doctors at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics harvested adult stem cells from Myrah’s bone marrow so they could be injected into blood-deprived areas of his heart. The hope is that the cells will stimulate the formation of new blood vessels or the expansion of existing ones, restoring blood flow.