RAPAMYCIN (SIROLIMUS) INHIBITS HEART CELL-GROWTH IN-VITRO

The success of infant and neonatal heart transplantation has increased dramatically since the mid-1980s, This success is due both to improve d medical and surgical techniques and better pharmacological managemen t of rejection episodes. We report here the results of in vitro studie s designed to investigate the effect of rapamycin (a macrolide antibio tic with potent antirejection activity) on the proliferation of fetal cardiac myocytes. Our data suggest that rapamycin inhibits the prolife ration of these cells, which is an effect that appears to be irreversi ble. This inhibition is relevant to the use of rapamycin in the treatm ent of rejection episodes in the infant and neonate, in which cardiac myocyte development is incomplete.