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April 18, 2005
First Islet Transplant from a Living Donor - Pioneering operation gives hope to diabetes sufferers
Breaking News from the Guardian:
A Japanese woman is free of the symptoms of diabetes after receiving cells from her mother's pancreas in the first transplant from a living donor, it emerged yesterday.However, the technology is probably far from common use. The article continues,The woman, 27, who had had insulin-dependent diabetes since she was 15, was given islet cells from her 56-year-old mother's pancreas.
Fears that the donor might become diabetic because of the loss of a substantial numbers of islet cells appear unfounded.
In a commentary, Stephanie Amiel from King's College, London, warns that these are early days. "Islet transplantation is not yet a perfect technique," she says. "Insulin independence is by no means certain." The drugs needed to stop the body rejecting the transplanted cells are toxic and the long-term survival of the cells is unclear.However, Islet transplantation as a solution to Type 1 diabetes has been shown to be feasible. Now, is it practical, i.e., is it suitable for use in most people?
Others Blogging:
Outside the Beltway published this Question and Answer list from the BBC:
Q: What is an islet cell transplant? For the transplant, healthy islet cells are taken from pancreases from dead donors and injected into the patient's liver. Once there, they develop their own blood supply and begin to produce insulin.Q: Why doesn't it cure all people with type 1 diabetes? The technique is not perfect. Mr Richard Lane of Bromley, Kent, no longer needs insulin injections after receiving three islet cell transplants. But many patients still require top-up insulin because the transplanted cells do not produce enough to control blood sugar.
Q: How long have islet cell transplants been around? The first procedure of this type was carried out in 2001. Canadian researchers were the first to demonstrate that people with type 1 diabetes could remain free of insulin injections after the treatment was complete. Two other patients in the UK have been treated with the procedure, but both still need small doses of insulin.
Q: Could everyone with type 1 diabetes receive an islet cell transplant soon? No. There is a big shortage of donor pancreases from which to extract islet cells. In the UK alone, about 250,000 people have type 1 diabetes. The technique is also still relatively new. This means there are only a limited number of healthcare professionals who can carry out the procedure.
Livnig with Diabetes writes,
"We aren't going to solve Type 1 until we understand the auto-immune process and we understand what destroyed the whole insulin process in the first place. The new islet implants (I don't think they are true transplants, since nothing is removed) show promise, but the medical people are going to scratch their heads and wonder why it won't work until we solve why it happened in the first place. We won't have a cure into that happens."
ChaosDigest has more.
Posted by Diabetologica at April 18, 2005 5:37 PM