Transplants

From heart transplant material to cancer therapies, pigs have provided a host of opportunities for humans, Now pigs have come to the rescue once again — this time for diabetes….

Patients with higher fasting plasma glucose levels but within the normoglycemic range before kidney transplantation are at increased risk for developing new-onset diabetes after transplantation, according to recent research….

Early trial finds technique is safe, improves blood sugar control….

Using skin cells from people with Type 1 diabetes, researchers were able to produce cells that made insulin in response to changing blood sugar levels.

French researchers report, that with good graft function, islet transplantation can achieve long-term metabolic control in patients with brittle Type 1 diabetes.

Cancer survivors who got radiation treatments as children have nearly twice the risk of developing diabetes as adults, say U.S. researchers. This correlation does not appear to be related to patients’ body mass index or physical inactivity.   

For patients with Type 1 diabetes who need a kidney transplant, simultaneous pancreas-kidney (SPK) transplantation offers a higher survival rate than other options but with some increased risks, reports a study.

People with Type 1 diabetes who received stem cell transplants from their own cells were able to go as long as four years without needing insulin treatments, U.S. researchers reported. 

Researchers have successfully induced human insulin-producing cells, known as beta cells, to replicate robustly in a living animal, as well as in the lab. The discovery not only could improve models and methods for studying diabetes, but also opens up new possibilities for treating the condition.

A Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon has found strong evidence that women over 45 are significantly less likely to be placed on a kidney transplant list than their equivalent male counterparts, even though women who receive a transplant stand an equal chance of survival.