Heart regeneration after myocardial infarction using synthetic biomaterials

Myocardial infarction causes almost 7.3 million deaths each year worldwide. However, current treatments are more palliative than curative. Presently, cell and protein therapies are considered the most promising alternative treatments. Clinical trials performed until now have demonstrated that these therapies are limited by protein short half-life and by low transplanted cell survival rate, prompting the development of novel cell and protein delivery systems able to overcome such limitations. In this review we discuss the advances made in the last 10 years in the emerging field of cardiac repair using biomaterial-based delivery systems with focus on the progress made on preclinical in vivo studies. Then, we focus in cardiac tissue engineering approaches, and how the incorporation of both cells and proteins together into biomaterials has opened new horizons in the myocardial infarction treatment. Finally, the ongoing challenges and the perspectives for future work in cardiac tissue engineering will also be discussed. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.