Advocate for organ donation is now a transplant recipient

By Jan Jarvis

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

December 12, 2005

STAR-TELEGRAM/BRUCE MAXWELL Shan Wolff of Fort Worth has type I diabetes and recently received an islet cell transplant at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. Wolff, who works for LifeGift in Fort Worth, has reduced his daily insulin dosage by 40 percent since the transplant.

FORT WORTH -- For 11 years, it has been Shan Wolff's job to tell families about the many lives that will be touched if they donate a loved one's organs.

Who could have known that one of those lives would turn out to be his own?

On Nov. 11, Wolff underwent a pancreatic islet cell transplant at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. The procedure, which uses particular cells from the pancreas of a deceased donor, has reduced his insulin requirement by 40 percent. It could eventually free Wolff from the insulin he has depended upon since he was diagnosed with diabetes at age 23.

Wolff is a donation clinical specialist for LifeGift Organ Donation Center in Fort Worth. When he meets with a family, he tells them about the impact they will have on as many as 75 recipients of organs or tissue.

"At the worst time of their lives, they have the courage to make a decision," said Wolff, who lives in Fort Worth. "Intellectually, I always knew it. But now I feel it at a deeper level because it has had such a personal impact."

Now 46, Wolff is the fourth person in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to undergo an islet cell transplant as part of a clinical trial at Baylor. A type 1 diabetic, he has required insulin for half of his life, said Dr. Marlon Levy, surgical director of transplantation at the Baylor Regional Transplant Institute and Baylor All Saints in Fort Worth.

In an islet cell transplant, cells are removed from the pancreas of a deceased donor and transferred into another person through a catheter, according to the American Diabetes Association. Once transferred, the islet cells attach to new blood vessels and start producing insulin.

The recipient must take anti-rejection drugs, but the procedure is considered less risky than a pancreatic transplant.

In January, Japanese physicians performed the first islet cell transplant using part of the pancreas from a live donor. The woman received the cells from her mother and was able to stop taking insulin within 22 days, according to Dr. Shinichi Matsumoto, who performed the procedure in Japan and recently visited Fort Worth.

For Wolff and other patients, a transplant can help prevent the wide swings in blood sugar levels that make diabetes such a dangerous disease, Levy said. By normalizing the patient's blood-sugar levels, the risk of complications is reduced. Less than a month after the procedure, Wolff is still using an insulin pump but his blood-sugar level has improved.

"He's made dramatic cuts in insulin," Levy said. "His sugar control has been extremely good."

Like other patients, he will probably need one or more islet cell transplants to further stabilize his blood-sugar level. The average pancreas has 1.2 million islet cells, but only about half can be retrieved, Levy said.

Wolff pursued the transplant as a way to prevent complications associated with diabetes, including kidney failure, blindness and cardiovascular disease. His unstable blood-sugar level also was causing extreme exhaustion, said Wolff, who is married and has a 13-year-old son.

"I felt like I was 80," he said. " Now, I don't need a nap on a daily basis."

In the 11 years Wolff has worked for LifeGift, he has participated in close to 300 donor cases, said Catherine Burch Graham, the center's communications director. In 2005, the agency recovered 873 organs from 272 donors, she said.

Wolff returned to work last week and soon will speak to another family about organ donation.

He doesn't think he'll bring up his personal experience. But inside, he'll be acutely aware of the difference organ donation can make in someone's life.

"This is more about what they are going through and what will help them; it's not about me," he said. "What this is about is human beings helping other human beings."

www.lifegift.org

IN THE KNOW

Diabetes

• More than 20 million Americans, or 7 percent of the population, have diabetes.
• Nationwide, more than 1 million people have type 1 diabetes, previously known as juvenile-onset diabetes.
• Gestational diabetes affects about 4 percent of all pregnant women, or 135,000 each year.
• About 14.6 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes. But 6.2 million people do not know they have it.
• Among adult diabetics, about 12 percent take insulin and oral medications; 19 percent take insulin; 53 percent take oral medications only; and 15 percent do not take medications or insulin.
• American Diabetes Association

Jan Jarvis, (817) 548-5423 jjarvis@star-telegram.com

Copyright © 2005 Star-Telegram.com.

This article posted January 9, 2006.