Cardiac function and mortality of stem cell therapy in patients with coronary artery disease who underwent coronary artery bypass graft without heart failure: A meta‑analysis

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a common disease and can be treated with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in specific cases. Stem cell therapy has been shown to be effective in patients with CAD who underwent CABG in several settings but limited to those without heart failure. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether stem cell therapy is effective in patients with CAD who underwent CABG and had no heart failure. The present systematic review investigated wether there was any improvement in cardiac function or reduction of mortality in patients with CAD who received CABG and did not have heart failure. The types of studies included in this systematic review were randomized controlled trials. In total, four databases were used for a systematic search: PubMed, CENTRAL database, Scopus, and CINAHL Plus. The results were reported as the mean difference of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and risk ratio of mortality rate between stem cell therapy vs. controls. There were 125 studies retrieved from a search in the four aforementioned databases; of those, seven studies met the study criteria. Regarding the outcome of cardiac function, the standardized mean difference of LVEF between the experimental and the control groups was 0.17 (95% CI: -0.09, 0.44). The risk ratio of mortality was also not statistically significant (1.59; 95% CI: 0.68, 3.73). Stem cell therapy did not exert significant improvement of the LVEF or the mortality rate compared with controls, in patients with CAD who underwent CABG and had no heart failure. Further studies are required to confirm the results of the present study.