Diabetes patient cured in UK transplant breakthrough
pharmafile | March 10, 2005 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â Â
A 61-year-old man from Kent has become one of the first ever patients to be cured of type I diabetes following transplants of donor pancreas cells.
Transplants of insulin-producing islet cells have only been partially successful in most cases until now, with patients' need for regular injections reduced but not entirely eliminated.
Now Richard Lane from Bromley is producing his own insulin and is completely free of hypoglycaemia thanks to the work of a multidisciplinary team at King's College Hospital in London.
The first case of a completely successful islet cell transplant came in 2000 from British surgeon James Shapiro who works in Canada.
The islet cells are obtained from donor pancreases and are injected into the patient's liver, where they establish themselves and begin producing insulin. The procedure is minimally invasive and takes just 45 minutes to complete.
Mr Nigel Heaton, the consultant liver surgeon who worked on the UK project said: "The breakthrough in islet transplantation is remarkable. King's is the first centre in the UK to achieve insulin independence in type I patients. The research approach at King's is totally multidisciplinary, with experts across specialities in diabetes, liver transplantation, cell isolation, and radiology all working together."
Mr Lane has not been completely freed from the need for injections, however, having to take regular doses of immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection of the transplanted cells.
Professor Stephanie Amiel, consultant in diabetes said more research needed to be done into the use of these anti-rejection drugs, while a shortage of organ donors presented another major problem. This means only the most serious cases among the UK's 250,000 people with type I diabetes will be considered for the procedure.
