Transplantation of bone marrow cells into a severely damaged heart may be a new way to treat heart disease patients who have exhausted all other treatment options, researchers report.The treatment also improved the heart's ability to pump blood and restored blood flow to oxygen-starved heart muscle, says Hung-Fat Tse, MD, an associate professor of medicine and deputy director of the Research Center of Heart, Brain, Hormone, and Healthy Aging at the University of Hong Kong. If findings of the small study pan out in future research, it could mean a new treatment option for the thousands of Americans with severe buildup of atherosclerotic plaque in their arteries, severe chest pain, and no other treatment options for coronary artery disease.