Objective: To investigate the effects of emergent intracoronary autologous bone marrow mononuclear cell (BM-MNC) transplantation on left ventricular function and myocardium lesion area in patients with first acute inferior-wall myocardial infarction.

Methods: Forty patients with first onset of acute inferior-wall myocardial infarction, 28 males and 12 females, aged < or = 75, treated with emergent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were randomly divided into 2 equal groups: group undergoing intracoronary transplantation of autologous BM-MNC via a micro-catheter right after PCI (BM-MNC group), and control group receiving normal saline and heparin. Blood routine examination, myocardium zymogram, and serum high sensitive C reactive protein (hsCRP) were detected, and 24-hour dynamic electrocardiography, delayed-enhancement myocardial magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), and angiography of the coronary artery and left ventricle were conducted before the transplantation and immediately, 1 week, and 6 months after transplantation.

Results: CMR showed that 6 months later the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) of the control group was 47.9% +/- 6.7%, significantly higher than that 1 week later (43.4% +/- 6.7%, P = 0.001), and the LVEF of the BM-MNC group 6 months later was 51.5% +/- 5.2%, significantly higher than that 1 week later (44.5% +/- 7.1%, P = 0.001; however, the absolute change of LVEF (DeltaLVEF) of the BM-MNC group was 6.95% +/- 3.33%, significantly higher than that of the control group (4.05% +/- 1.68%, P = 0.047). Six months later the myocardial lesion area of the BM-MNC group decreased more significantly in comparison with the control group. Nevertheless, there was no difference in change of left ventricular end diastolic volume (LVEDV) between these two groups. The serum hsCRP 48 h after transplantation of the BM-MNC group was 2.8 g/L +/- 0.8 g/L, significantly lower than that before transplantation (13.4 g/L +/- 3.6 g/L, P < 0.001). No severe clinical events, such death, recurrent cardiac infarction, malignant arrhythmia, occur in these 2 groups.

Conclusion: Emergent intracoronary transplantation of autologous BM-MNC in patients with acute inferior-wall myocardial infarction improves the left ventricular function and myocardial infusion, minimizes the myocardial lesion area significantly.