A SUCCESSFUL new transplant technique for treating diabetes may produce
overwhelming demand for transplant tissue, experts are predicting.
Eight adults who were suffering from severe diabetes no longer need to inject
insulin, after being given a transplant of pancreatic islet cells by James
Shapiro and colleagues at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Diabetics have
been receiving islet cell transplants for at least a decade, but the infused
cells often fail or are rejected. But the transplants in Shapiro鈥檚 small group
are all still working after up to 14 months.
鈥淎 protocol that has taken eight consecutive patients off insulin is truly a
landmark event in diabetes treatment,鈥� says Hugh Auchincloss, a transplant
surgeon at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In previous operations the pancreas
cells were damaged by the immunosuppressants needed to prevent rejection.
Shapiro鈥檚 group used a new cocktail of non-steroidal drugs to suppress
rejection, he told a meeting of transplant surgeons in Chicago last week. He
also gave patients cells from at least two donor pancreases.鈥�
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But the need for more tissue may be a problem, says Camillo Ricordi, an islet
transplantation expert at the University of Miami School of Medicine in Florida.
And while the strategy so far seems a success compared to other islet transplant
techniques, patients will have to take the immunosuppressants for the rest of
their lives, which poses other health risks.