This file photo shows a scientist working with a microscope. (Xinhua/AFP File Photo)

Japanese scientists found women's menstrual blood can be used to repair heart damage, according to a study released in the latest Stem Cells online.

Scientists gathered the precursor cells, called mesenchymal cells (MMCs) from menstrual blood donated by nine women volunteers and cultivated it for about a month.

After being put together in a culture with cells from the hearts of rats, about 20 percent of the cells began beating spontaneously and eventually formed sheets of heart muscle tissue.

The success rate is 100 times higher than the 0.2-0.3 percent for stem cells taken from human bone marrow, according to Shunichiro Miyoshi, a cardiologist at Keio University's school of medicine, who is involved in the research.

Another set of experiments showed that live rats that had suffered heart attacks improved after being implanted with the MMCs. The researchers saw that the implanted MMCs gave rise to cardiomyocytes in the rats' hearts and decreased the myocardial infarction (MI) area.

"There may be a system in the near future that allows women to use it for their own treatment," Miyoshi told media that women may eventually be able to use their own menstrual blood.

Anyway, it is a new and more abundant sources for use in regenerative medicine which have been identified as a potentially unlimited, noncontroversial, easily collectable, and inexpensive source.

(Agencies/Xinhua News Agency April 28,2008)