Pancreas Cell Transplants May Be The New Hope For Treating Type 1 Diabetes
Pancreas cell transplants can protect the most severe Type 1 diabetics from life-threatening hypoglycemia, a study conducted by the Clinical Islet Transplantation (CIT) Consortium says.
"Cell-based diabetes therapy is real and works and offers tremendous potential for the right patient," confirms Dr. Bernhard Hering, lead author of the study conducted by the University of Minnesota.
Associated Press reports that the researchers are, this time, more hopeful for a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) license, particularly for people with Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) who no longer experience low glucose level symptoms and therefore most at risk of life-threatening episodes of hypoglycemia.
The new clinical trial results, published by Diabetes Care, show that 88% of the patients had their "awareness of blood sugar dips restored, and harbored glucose levels in near-normal ranges", a year after they received transplantation of pancreatic islets, the cell clusters that contain insulin-producing cells. Most promising was that 52 percent did not need insulin treatment anymore or used lower doses.
Lisa Bishop of Eagle River, Wisconsin, who went through the clinical pancreatic islet transplant in 2010, says she no longer needs insulin shots. Though Bishop may have experienced the side effects that include infection and lowered kidney function, and will need to take immune-suppressing drugs her whole life to avoid rejecting their new cells, she still describes the result as an "amazing gift".
According to Science Daily, the trial was funded by National Institutes of Health members National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The U.S. FDA consulted with the trial, which was crucial because the agency's requirement of a consistency in the procedure led to a standard protocol in the islet transplantation administered by the eight participating medical centers.
"While still experimental, and with risks that must be weighed carefully, the promise of islet transplantation is undeniable and encouraging," said NIDDK Director Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D.
In 2014, a Healthline piece cited the same positive outlook on the future of islet cell transplants as expressed Dr. Jose Oberholzer, head of the University of Illinois islet transplantation project.
Similar clinical trials are performed in other countries notably by institutions like the European Consortium for Islet Transplantation ECIT) and UK Islet Transplant Consortium.
