In what promises to be a boon for treatment of certain
types of diabetes, encouraging results were obtained in pancreatic islet
transplantation in simians by researchers from a city hospital, who are
all set to try it out in humans on Friday.
Beta
cells in pancreas produce insulin to control blood sugar levels.
However, due to hereditary, environmental or other causes these cells
stop producing insulin in some people forcing them to depend on
artificial insulin.
With about 285 million people
afflicted with diabetes worldwide, including 62.4 million in India,
pancreatic islet transplantation was emerging as an important option in
the treatment of type-1 and type-3C diabetes. Islet cell transplantation
involving injection of the isolated islet cells into liver was being
offered in a few specialised centres in the USA and Europe. However,
patients would be required to take immuno-suppressants.
But
doctors at the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology have developed a
method to transplant islet cells through an encapsulated device without
using immuno-suppressants.
Addressing a press
conference on the eve of a two-day Indo-US Bilateral Workshop on
‘Pancreatic Islets: From isolation to Transplantation’, chairman of the
Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG), K. Nageshwar Reddy said that
scientists from AIG’s research wing in collaboration with National
Institute of Nutrition (NIN) have isolated, cultured and transplanted
pancreatic islets in simian models through an immuno-isolation device,
doing away with the need to use immuno-suppressants.
A
year after transplantation, it was surprisingly found that the isolated
cells were not only active, but proliferated. Called ‘theracyte’, the
device, a kind of an “artificial pancreas” containing lakhs of islet
cells would be inserted under the skin.
The tiny
porous gaps in the capsule would not allow the cells to move but allow
transmission of insulin into the body and energy into the cells.
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