Rio, June 25, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) announced Tuesday (24) the first transplant of bone marrow trunk cells in a patient with a heart deficiency caused by Chagas disease. The transplant, considered unprecedented in the world, was done at the Santa Izabel Hospital, in Salvador. The patient, a 52 year-old man, received 240 million bone marrow cells in his coronary arteries. He was released from the hospital on Friday (20), but he continues with medical follow-up to spot possible collateral effects. So far, the patient's health condition is stable, without symptoms.

The operation was approved in March by the National Research Ethics Commission (Conep), a department of the Ministry of Health that authorizes medical research involving human beings. The transplant was authorized by the Conep on the basis of a proposal submitted the year before by teams from the Santa Izabel Hospital, the Millenial Institute of Tissue Bio-Engineering, and the Gonçalo Muniz Research Center, which is a Fiocruz unit in Bahia.

If the procedure produces positive results in the first five patients, it will be applied on another 25 victims of Chagas disease. (DAS)