Combating cardiovascular disease with angiogenic therapy.

For over a decade we have lived with the promise that therapeutic angiogenesis, defined as the growth of new blood vessels in tissues damaged by poor blood perfusion, would provide a lasting clinical benefit to patients suffering from cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the Western world. Numerous successful protein, gene and cell-based angiogenesis studies in animals with experimentally induced ischemia have not been followed by positive efficacy data in human trials. Armed with knowledge of the shortcomings of earlier clinical studies, emerging results from more recent trials indicate that protein-based angiogenesis therapy may provide a viable treatment option for patients suffering from advanced atherosclerotic disease.