Breakthroughs like this give us hope. Although this is not a solution, just one more step down a long road, the knowledge gained will be invaluable.
A Japanese woman is free of the symptoms of diabetes after receiving cells from her mother's pancreas in the first transplant from a living donor, it emerged yesterday.The woman, 27, who had had insulin-dependent diabetes since she was 15, was given islet cells from her 56-year-old mother's pancreas.
Fears that the donor might become diabetic because of the loss of a substantial numbers of islet cells appear unfounded.
A paper from Shinichi Matsumoto and colleagues at Kyoto University, published online by the Lancet medical journal, reveals that the cells from half the mother's pancreas were sufficient to free the recipient of her insulin dependency within 22 days. She has now been insulin-free for two months and her mother has suffered no complications.
The researchers say that the outcome was as good as that achieved with the cells of two or more whole pancreases from dead donors. They think this may be due to the improved potency of islet cells from a living donor.
Related: The Lancet
Posted by Alan at April 20, 2005 12:16 PM