Islet Transplantations Performed by REI investigators

Main Category: Diabetes
Article Date: 01 Jun 2004 - 5:00 PDT

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Working in collaboration with the Southern California Islet Consortium (SC-IC), investigators at REI were chosen to perform islet transplantations on patients with difficult to control diabetes. SC-IC members include such prestigious institutions as Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, City of Hope National Medical Center, University of California, Irvine, University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and REI.

This study is being performed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of islet cell transplantation alone (ITA) in patients who have difficult to control type 1 diabetes mellitus without kidney failure.

Approximately one million Americans have type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is associated with the damage of a specific cell subtype of pancreatic islets (clusters of cells in the pancreas that produce insulin and other metabolic hormones), which makes patients depend on an outside source of insulin.

Transplantation of islets into the portal vein of the liver offers the prospect of good blood glucose control without the major surgical risks associated with whole pancreas transplant and may result in independence from insulin injections.

Eli Ipp, MD, Principal Investigator of the project, can be contacted at 310-222- 2503 or ipp@gcrc.rei.edu.

Contact: David Feuerherd
df@issuesmangement.com
310-215-0234
Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute (REI)