HONOLULU -- Entertainer Don Ho left intensive care at a Bangkok hospital Wednesday after he received experimental stem cell therapy for congestive heart failure.

Dr. Edward Shen is one of Hawaii's top cardiologists. The idea of sending a patient to Thailand for experimental therapy was not something he took lightly. However, Ho is not just any patient.

"He's quite adventurous and he is not afraid to take risks and this combined with his basic needs, I think, make us feel it's worth a go," Shen said.

Ho's basic need was to fix a weak and sometimes wildly beating heart. It is untreatable by conventional medicine. In Thailand, stem cells grown from Ho's blood were injected into his heart muscle on Tuesday.

"Short term wise the stem cells might improve the heart, but long term wise we don't know what those cells can do," Shen said.

The company that performed Ho's operation has only had about 50 patients. It said most of the patients got better after three to six months. However, a University of Hawaii expert on heart biology said early experiments often look promising.

"It's important to be careful about that and to not let one's enthusiasm carry one away," Dr. Ralph Shohet said.

Shohet said the American medical system will demand several years of study before accepting stem cell heart therapy.

"Sometimes we cannot wait. It's frustrating, but we accept it," he said.

Shen, who is also a medical professor and department head at Queen's Medical Center, didn't enjoy sending a patient to a foreign country. However, many stem cell programs are illegal in the United States.

"In this country the research is very limited because of various rules and also by politics," Shen said.