Best Donor of Islets for Diabetes Treatment

The solution to the scarcity of islets for transplantation is to get the islet cells from living donors. This is according to the new report in Clinical Transplantation's new study. Samples of these cells obtained from living donors showed a 94% viability for transplantation against 42% from the dead donors. Clinical Transplantation is a journal for those who care for people requiring tissue or organ transplant.

The author of the study, Dr. Kwang-Won Kim said that the only known treatment for the diabetics who are dependent on insulin is transplantation of islet cells. The trouble is there is not enough supply from dead donors especially sometimes they need two such donors to obtain adequate cells to treat just one diabetic. Living donors will solve this problem because islet cells weakens right after death.

There is a downside to this because the procedure to obtain islet cells from live donors is not free from risk. There is a chance for the donors themselves to develop diabetes and who wants that? There is therefore a need for more research on this issue in order to make certain the donors will be safe and at the same time meet the demand for islet cells.

Last year UK's Department of Health announced funding from the government for a new type 1 diabetes treatment. It will spend 2.34 million euros the first year and increase this to a maximum of 7.32 million euros as it meets the demand for the service.

Previously, this type of service was offered to twelve patients in England which were funded from charitable organizations but chiefly by Diabetes UK. The new funding from the government will allow around 20 transplants in six centers that will be ready 24/7 to receive pancreas from donors and prepare the islet cells for transplantation. This will further expand to 80 transplants a year.

Won't it be grand if we had this option in the US as well.? I've tried to look around for this so that I can broadcast it from my website to give my readers the option to study and see if this fits their treatment plan. I did the same thing in Canada but the best I could find there was the pioneering islet transplantation in Edmonton, Alberta that paved the way to the current success.