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March 10, 2005
In a medical breakthrough that builds research done in Canada,
British doctors announced yesterday that they had cured a
61-year-old man suffering from the most extreme form of diabetes for
over 30 years by injecting pancreatic cells into his liver. The
offers hopes for more than 171 million patients with this
potentially lethal disease around the world
Professor Stephanie Amiel, a consultant in diabetes at King's
College Hospital where the breakthrough treatment was carried out,
said the achievement was "hugely exciting". "The implications for
the future are enormous. Eventually this could mean the end of
insulin dependence for all Type 1 diabetes sufferers," Prof Amiel
said. The World Health Organization (WHO) said last May that 3.2
million people die of diabetes each year, a toll that was triple
that of previous estimates
Diabetes is caused by a problem with insulin, a hormone that
stimulates body cells into absorbing the energy source glucose from
the blood. To learn more about diabetes, view
Diabetes Health Information.
The big step forward has been the discovery that islet cells,
harvested from the pancreases of dead organ donors, can work if they
are injected into the liver. The transplant requires a simple,
minimally invasive procedure that takes only about 45 minutes. Once
there, the cells develop their own blood supply and start producing
insulin. . The technique is still experimental — two previous
British transplants have resulted in partial but not complete
independence from insulin injections — and is critically dependent
on islet cell donations. There is also the possibility of pancreatic
islet cell rejection, which is why scientists around the world,
including Singapore, are concurrently seeking alternative
treatments.
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