| 摘要 |
A method of gene therapy is described that will protect the hearts of patients against myocardial infarction. Antioxidant enzymes are known to be cardioprotective, provided that these enzymes are administered before reperfusion. However, it has not previously been practical to administer antioxidant enzymes to patients at risk for myocardial infarction because the recombinant enzymes were expensive and required continuous intravenous administration. These limitations have been overcome by using gene therapy to provide a continuous source of antioxidant enzyme. When tested in carefully controlled pre-clinical studies, antioxidant gene therapy reduced the size of myocardial infarction by >50%. This marked reduction in infarct size could mean the difference between life and death for many patients, and would improve the quality of life for every person that survived myocardial infarction. This same approach may also be used by cardiothoracic surgeons to improve the functional recovery of donor hearts after cardiac transplantation.
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