东京——据一位外科医生称，日本的一家医院在今年的这项开创性疗法获得批准后，首次使用了市面上可购买到的心脏肌肉干细胞进行了手术。
Tokyo – A hospital in Japan has carried out the world’s first surgery using sheets of commercially available heart muscle stem cells after the ground-breaking therapy was approved this year, one of the surgeons said.
这些肌肉细胞源自被称为“诱导多能干细胞”（iPS细胞）的再生性生物材料。在周二进行的长达一小时的手术中，这些细胞被移植到一名50多岁女性的心脏中。
Sheets of muscle cells derived from regenerative products known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, were transplanted into the heart of a woman in her 50s during the hourlong surgery performed on Tuesday.
这是该再生疗法自今年3月获得政府有条件批准以来的首次临床应用。
It marked the first clinical use of the regenerative therapy since it received conditional government approval in March.
“我们希望这能改善患者的生活质量，”大阪警视医院院长佐佐木良树（Yoshiki Sawa）在手术后对记者表示。
“Our hope is that this will improve the patient’s quality of life,” surgeon Yoshiki Sawa, the head of Osaka Keisatsu Hospital, told reporters after the surgery.
据日本媒体报道，这项再生疗法已在8名患有缺血性心脏病（由心脏动脉狭窄引起的心脏损伤）的患者身上进行了试验。所有患者的症状都有所缓解，其中4人的心脏功能也得到了改善。
Trials of the regenerative therapy were conducted on eight patients suffering from ischemic heart disease — damage caused by narrowed heart arteries. All eight experienced an easing of their symptoms, including four whose heart functions improved, Japanese media said.
佐佐木良树与日本科学家山中伸弥（Shinya Yamanaka）共同开发了这项技术；山中伸弥因在iPS细胞研究方面的成就于2012年获得了诺贝尔奖。iPS细胞具有发育成人体内任何类型细胞的潜力。
Sawa developed the technology in collaboration with Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who won the Nobel Prize in 2012 for his research into iPS cells, which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body.
佐佐木良树的疗法主要针对那些已经尝试过其他治疗方法但效果不佳的心脏病患者。据媒体报道，该疗法有望改善心脏肌肉功能，从而提升心脏泵血能力和患者的运动耐受力。
Sawa’s therapy is primarily designed for heart patients who have exhausted other treatment options. It is expected to improve heart muscle function, resulting in improved cardiac performance and exercise tolerance.
他的团队计划到2033年前对75名患者实施类似的手术，并评估该疗法的实际疗效。
His team plans to conduct similar operations on 75 patients by 2033 and to report on the treatment’s efficacy, media reports said.
《朝日新闻》指出，只有在未来七年内证明该疗法的安全性和有效性后，它才能获得正式的医疗许可。
The treatment would then be fully authorized after its benefits and safety are proved over the next seven years, the Asahi Shimbun said.
此前，日本也在3月批准了一种将iPS细胞移植到患者大脑中的帕金森病治疗方法——该疗法在临床试验中取得了成功。
Japan also gave conditional approval in March for a Parkinson’s disease treatment that transplants iPS cells into a patient’s brain, following a successful clinical trial.
诱导多能干细胞是通过刺激成熟的、已经特化的细胞回到幼年状态而产生的——基本上无需胚胎即可实现克隆。
IPS cells are created by stimulating mature, already specialized cells back into a juvenile state — basically cloning without the need for an embryo.