Wednesday, March 23 2005 11:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The premier medical institute in the country, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), is all set to prove to the world the efficacy of its stem cell therapy conducted over the last 18 months on heart patients, with the help of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) technique.

"Positron Emission Tomography is being installed at AIIMS next month, through which we will get the final proof of our work on heart patients. All the patients would be screened for finding how viable our work was and would also study various heart tissues of the patients metabolically," Dr P Venugopal, director AIIMS, said.

"In our study we used this therapy on 33 patients and all of them are showing positive results," he says.

Researchers at AIIMS have also conducted some pilot studies for use of stem cells in diabetics and now plan to inject these cells directly into pancreatic arteries of these patients.

"For future research, we are looking at all areas - diabetes, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, other neurological disorders and Parkinson's disease. The residual damage after stroke too can be minimised by injecting stem cells," Dr Venugopal said.