http://www.halifaxlive.com/artman/publi ... 8833.shtml
Diabetes Type 1: One Step Closer To A Cure - Interview by Patrick Perry, Saturday Evening PostU.K. doctors have cured a 61-year-old man of Type 1 diabetes following three transplants of islet cells obtained from donor pancreases and transplanted by injection, into the man's liver.
The breakthrough, by doctors at King’s College Hospital, could mean the end of insulin dependence for all Type 1 diabetes sufferers.
The procedure is minimally invasive and only takes around 45 minutes to complete, according to a statement released by London's, King’s College Hospital.
The 61-year-old patient suffered from Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and no longer requires insulin injections.
"This breakthrough in islet transplantation is remarkable. King’s is the first centre in the UK to achieve insulin independence in Type 1 patients." said Mr. Nigel Heaton, Consultant Liver Surgeon. "We have shown that cell transplantation, with both pancreatic islet cells and previously with hepatocyte cells, can offer patients a valuable alternative to conventional treatment," added Heaton.
This is still an experimental procedure for people with Type 1 diabetes in which pancreatic islets from human donor organs are infused into the body to try and replace some of the islet function which the patient has lost. In order to prevent rejection of the islet graft and recurrence of the diabetes, the recipient is committed to taking drugs that suppress the body’s immune system.
Type 1 diabetes often starts in childhood and once present is irreversible. It occurs as a result of the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin being destroyed. Usually, the destruction of the insulin making cells is the result of an autoimmune process, in which the body fails to recognize the cells as its own and destroys them. This destruction results in total insulin deficiency. Prior to this breakthrough the only treatment for Type 1 diabetes was insulin injections.
there is a longer Q and A section in the link above.The islet cell transplant procedure was pioneered in clinical trials at the University of Alberta, and the antirejection protocol was designed by James Shapiro, M.D., director of the clinical islet transplant program.
The novel protocol departs from previous attempts at islet cell transplant in that it uses a novel steroid-free combination of three drugs to prevent rejection of the transplanted cells, a procedure that appears to prevent the autoimmune diabetes from returning.
Like many great medical discoveries, the new approach came to Dr. Shapiro as a hunch. While sitting in a hotel room on a rainy day in Baltimore, he sat down and wrote the protocol. He had been asked to return to the University of Alberta after a hiatus at the University of Maryland--and needed to come up with a new method of forcing the human body to produce its own insulin.
"I told myself I was going to give it one last try," said Shapiro, who with many other researchers from around the world had tried repeatedly to transplant islets to severe insulin-dependent patients with little success.
Using the steroid-free protocol, seven of seven patients in the trial--some of whom were administering up to 15 injections a day--are now insulin-independent, free of daily insulin injections and constant worry. The results of the trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Texas man cured
This is a huge breakthrough. If these patients are able to continue living with out needing their regular insulin shots, it could mean the end of type 1 diabetes. In some cases, the patient has gone 12 months or more with out needing a single shot of insulin.
The only downside is that it is just for type 1 diabetes, the type that develops in childhood, not for type 2, which develops in adulthood. But type 2 isn't as bad as type 1, seeing as how you dont need to get regular insulin injections every day with type 2, and it can be monitored with a carefully watched diet.
This is a pretty big day for Science and Medicine.
