A medical procedure pioneered in Edmonton is offering new hope to type 1 diabetes patients around the world.
“The program itself has come a long way since the beginning,” said Dr. James Shapiro, who ushered in the treatment in 1999.
The procedure involves the introduction of healthy islet cells – cells that produce insulin in people whose own bodies can’t – which are harvested from a donor pancreas.
The one-hour procedure, which has now been performed hundreds of times around the world, involves no cutting and no blood – just a thin tube inserted into the patient’s portal vein.
Two of Shapiro’s original seven patients are still free of insulin shots, the others required smaller doses of insulin after three to five years.
“Some of the cells were being lost by the same process that caused diabetes in the first place called autoimmunity,” Shapiro said. “So we felt we needed some heavier anti-rejection type treatment up front with an antibody to help control that and in fact that treatment has been very effective.”
Patients who have had the new antibody treatment have seen even better results. 74 per cent are still off insulin after five years.
Allyson Hadland received the treatment in February. She’s already seeing the benefits and is hopeful the procedure will provide lasting results.
“It’s reduced the stress on my husband and our family a tremendous amount,” Hadland said. “He used to phone me 10 times a day just to check to make sure i was still alive.”
Shapiro is now working with a U.S. team to find a safe way to use stem cells to make insulin. The next step, he says, may not be transplantation – but regeneration – using hormones to make the pancreas re-grow its own islet cells.
“I think there’s many opportunities ahead and I think somebody who faces a life sentence with diabetes and a lifetime on insulin today has real robust hope that there will be a difference and a meaningful cure on the horizon,” Shapiro said.
With files from Su-Ling Goh.
