Study may mark advance in diabetes transplant care

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Doctors were able to eliminate the need for insulin injections in diabetic women for a year or more by simplifying the technique of transplanting insulin-producing cells, a small study said on Tuesday.

The University of Minnesota report said each of the eight women in the study received a relatively small number of the cells, called islets, from a single pancreas.

Previous efforts, while also successful, involved transplanting more islets from up to four pancreases for each recipient, increasing the cost and the health risks.

Patients receiving such transplants need drugs to prevent rejection, which can also make them more vulnerable to infection.

“For islet transplants to become a viable treatment option for those living with type 1 (juvenile) diabetes, we must find a way to make the process more efficient and cost-effective,” said Bernhard Hering, the study’s chief author.

“Our findings may have implications for the ongoing transition of islet transplants from clinical investigation to routine clinical care,” he added.

The process needs to be tried on more patients to prove it works, said the study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

In the study, all eight recipients achieved insulin independence, and five remained that way for more than one year.

The transplants involve inserting a narrow tube through the patients’ blood vessels and into the portal vein of the liver, where the islet cells are deposited. There, they release the right amount of insulin to control blood sugar.

Transplant patients may have fewer and milder episodes of low blood sugar levels, which can lead to unconsciousness and seizures. The procedure also may lower diabetes complications such as damage to the heart, blood vessels and eyes, the study said.

“Our results mark a distinct advance in islet transplant efficacy. We not only achieved insulin independence using islets from only one donor pancreas, we also achieved superior ... control using significantly fewer islets,” the report concluded.

The study was financed by Swiss drugmaker Roche, the National Institutes of Health and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 

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