美研究人员通过检测血液中细胞种类预测心脏病

       心脏病病人经常会为自己随时随地发病而担心。因此如何能够有效检测心脏病也是摆在科学家面前的一个问题。现在来自美国加州斯克利普斯研究所的研究人员发现了一种新的方法。这项研究发表在Physical Biology杂志上。研究人员通过选取111名不同健康情况的志愿者来分析其血液细胞等相关组分的含量，来分析这些细胞与心脏病之间的联系。

       研究人员介绍说，当人摄入脂肪过多时，会导致脂类附着在血管上并进入心脏中，继续发展下去就有可能引发心脏病。在这一过程中，血管壁的内皮细胞会脱落下来。因此通过检测该类细胞就有可能预测心脏病发生的风险。根据这一原理，科学家们有望开发出检测心脏病的新方法。

       不过英国心脏基金会的研究人员评论说这一方法距离实际应用还有相当长的一段距离。

详细英文报道：

Patients who have a heart attack have unique cells floating in their blood, say US researchers.

Their study on 111 people, published in the journal Physical Biology, could spot the difference between healthy and heart-attack patients.

They are investigating whether testing for the cells can be used to predict those about to have a heart attack.

The British Heart Foundation said it was unlikely to change practice in the short term.

The team, at the Scripps Research Institute in California, looked for circulating endothelial cells in the blood of patients.

Heart attack

Fatty plaques build up on the walls of blood vessels and can ultimately rupture, releasing fragments of the plaque into the bloodstream. This can block the flow of blood in the vessels around the heart and cause a heart attack.

During this process endothelial cells were also released into the blood, the researchers said.

Tests in 79 patients after a heart attack were compared with 25 healthy people and seven having treatment for diseased blood vessels.

One of the researchers, Prof Peter Kuhn, said: "The goal of this paper was to establish evidence that these circulating endothelial cells can be detected reliably in patients following a heart attack and do not exist in healthy controls, which we have achieved.

"Our results were so significant relative to the healthy controls that the obvious next step is to assess the usefulness of the test in identifying patients during the early stages of a heart attack."

Commenting on the findings, Dr Mike Knapton, from the British Heart Foundation, said: "In the short to medium term, it is unlikely to change how people in the UK are treated as we already have good ways to treat and diagnose heart attacks, and targets to ensure rapid pain-to-treatment times.

"This study appears to be laying the groundwork for future research to see if this test could be used to identify patients in the early stages of a heart attack."