Transplants for Diabetes show Signs of Success

February 17, 2005

There have been many stumbling blocks in doctors’ efforts to experiment for the treatment for Type 1 diabetes by perfect transplantation of islet cells. Type 1 diabetes often begins in childhood.

The success of such transplants is usually possible only if islet cells from the pancreases of two or even three donors are used - a significant drawback, given the scarcity of donor organs. The University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, conducted a trail of 8 patients and the doctors have been successful in the transplantation of islet cells. The islet are needed to produce insulin, with the pancreases of single donors.

Dr. Bernhard J. Hering, the Director of the islet transplant program at the Univ. of Minnesota, explicated that the use of anti-inflammatory drugs that are normally used to treat arthritis seems to have enabled many more of the transplanted cells to survive. Patients were given these drugs before surgery to dampen the inflammation that otherwise destroys as many as half of transplanted islet cells in the first 24 hours.

The doctor told that the donated islet cells were also cultured by the doctors, in the laboratory for two days, rather than transplanting them within hours of isolating them from the donor pancreas. This step appears to give the islet cells greater resilience.

The Journal of the American Medical Association today reports the results of the trial.

Dr. R. Paul Robertson said, "This is really a long-awaited development, if it can be reproduced, because it means that the efficiency of islet cells is being increased, "The doctor is the scientific director of the Pacific Northwest Research Institute, a diabetes research center in Seattle. He was not involved in the trial.

The researchers hope that islet-cell transplantation can be done almost as easily as a blood transfusion, in less than an hour. It will one day free many people from Type 1 diabetes from the need to inject themselves with insulin several times a day to control their blood sugar.

But the procedure of refining has not been easy. Among the first patients to have successful transplants five years ago, most are using insulin again-though not as much as they needed before their transplants.

Type 1 diabetes, is also dubbed as Juvenile diabetes. It occurs when the body's immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. The cells are contained in tiny structures called the islets of Langerhans.

The United States has approximately one million of Type 1 diabetes patients

Although the transplantation of the entire pancreas is possible but the risk of death is great in that. The operation is rarely done in people who do not also need a kidney transplant because of diabetes-related kidney failure. Islet-cell transplants are less invasive and less dangerous.

Islet cells make up about 2% of the pancreas. They can be isolated from cadaver pancreases and then transplanted through a catheter into the recipient's liver. They cannot be placed into the pancreas, because that organ is too vulnerable to inflammation.

Copyright © 2005 Express Newsline Group.

This article posted March 19, 2005.