The team reported that there were no significant demographic or clinical differences in the two patient groups receiving islet transplants, nor were there significant differences in the donated pancreata. All donor pancreata were preserved for less than six hours. Each patient received two islet preparations.

"In the DI group, the fasting blood glucose of all three patients improved after a single islet transplantation, and improved further after the second transplantation," commented Dr. Matsumoto. "None of these patients experienced subsequent hypoglycemia, and all three became insulin independent."

The team had recently shown that the DI process was successful in animal models because DI prevented tissue and cell death, suggesting that DI improved the quality and quantity of the isolated islet cells destined for transplantation.

"The number of islets isolated from donor pancreata continues to be quite variable and many times are not sufficient for clinical transplantation" said Dr. Rodolfo Alejandro, section editor for Cell Transplantation and Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "This paper describes a novel approach to improve islet isolation yields. These are promising results that need to be confirmed in a randomized concurrent protocol".

Source: Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair