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Medical gamble pays off for heart patient
Andy Tristem
A RETIRED Marks and Spencer boss has joined forces with NHS doctors to launch the UK's first medical trial of a pioneering heart disease treatment.
Ian Rosenberg, 69, of Queen's Grove, St John's Wood, set up a charity to fund research into stem cell surgery after receiving the treatment in 2002.
Doctors had given him less than three months to live when he heard about a miracle cure being tested on animals in Germany.
Unable to walk more than a few metres, he volunteered to be the first human to undergo the operation which uses stem cells - the body's master cells - to rebuild damaged heart tissue.
He said: "I'm a gambling man, normally with horses, and thought why not gamble on me? I told them it would be better for them to monitor me rather than a mouse. Now I play golf every day - I know the treatment works."
Doctors in Frankfurt took marrow from Mr Rosenberg's bones, separated out the stem cells and injected them into his diseased heart.
He began to notice the benefits within months: "I could not walk up the stairs or around the garden. Then one day I remembered that I had left my glasses upstairs and without realising I went and got them. Then, shortly afterwards, I walked, nice and slowly, to the high street.
"If you can imagine what it's like not to be able to sleep because you can't lay flat then you can start to realise the benefits. Heart disease is the biggest killer in England."
There are about 2.7million people with heart disease in the UK. It kills 120,000 each year.
Unlike embryonic stem cells, the research is not controversial because the cells are not taken from the womb.
Mr Rosenberg, who is married with two children, said: "I am interested in saving between 600,000 and one million people a year in the UK. Stem cells will eventually cure kidney and liver disease as well as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I want everybody to feel that if they have heart failure and no decent way of living there is still hope. It is the biggest leap forward in medicine for 100 years."
Despite the potential benefits, the NHS has repeatedly turned down Mr Rosenberg's pleas to help fund the research.
The £6million study, at Barts and the London NHS Trust, Whitechapel, will last four years and include about 700 people.
Stage one will look at 300 patients whose hearts are failing due to heart attacks. Then a group of 200 patients who have a heart muscle disorder will be analysed. Finally scientists will research 200 patients who have recently had a heart attack.
Dr Anthony Mathur, who
is leading the research, said: "Stem cells are the body's master cells. They are unique because unlike any other cells they
can turn into almost any other type of cell in the body."
Mr Rosenberg has raised £1million of the £6million needed for the programme through corporate entertainment events and through individual donations.
To find out more, go to heartcellsfoundation.com or to make a donation telephone 020-7601 8873 or send an email to jo.stebbing @heartcellsfoundation.com.
andy.tristem@hamhigh.co.uk
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