Cardiomyopathy is a common clinical disorder affecting the heart muscle. This 
disease process frequently leads to congestive heart failure and will often 
progress to end-stage heart failure. Present standard of care treatment options 
for cardiomyopathy include medical management, lifestyle changes, and surgical 
procedures including left ventricular assist devices as a destiny therapy or 
bridging to heart transplantation. Even despite advances in drug therapy, 
mechanical assist devices, and organ transplantation, more than half of the 
persons with cardiomyopathy will die within 5 years of diagnosis. Small 
uncontrolled clinical trials have demonstrated cardiac stem cells as a treatment 
option for cardiomyopathy. The theory for the individual or combined mechanism 
of action for stem cells includes (1) transdifferentiation to blood vessels or 
myocardium, (2) fusion with the native dysfunctional myocytes to augment 
function, and (3) homing that may be a systemic or panacrine response for 
recruiting other cells, and growth factors to help improve oxygen delivery and 
myocardial function. The field of cardiac cell therapy is rapidly progressing to 
gather more data with intermediate-size, double-blinded trials that will 
demonstrate the safety and efficacy of cell therapy.