There seems to be nothing on web so here is the Latest News Release.

Robert

Monday, May 26, 2003

Dr. Mark Meloche of the UBC research team says the procedure only takes about 40 minutes, but does involve immuno-suppressant drugs and possible side effects. 'It's not a drive-through process.' (Global BC)

Vancouver researchers say they'll reveal today the first British Columbian to be effectively cured of diabetes.

Dr. Garth Warnock, co-director of Vancouver General Hospital's Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory, said his team has figured out a way to transplant healthy insulin-producing cells from deceased donors into live diabetes sufferers.

The first success is a woman whose pancreas has been producing insulin with donated cells for about two months, he said.

"For these people, it's just an incredible freedom," Warnock said. "It's as close as a person can get to having normal blood sugars throughout the day ... It enables them to eat similar foods to their families and avoid the needles so many of them are subjected to."

The bodies of people with Type 1 diabetes -- an estimated 13,500 British Columbians -- don't produce insulin, a hormone that regulates sugar levels in the blood. Even if the disease is treated, complications can include kidney failure, heart disease and blindness. Regular insulin injections, sometimes several times a day, have been the usual treatment.

Now, Warnock said, eligible diabetes sufferers can take two injections of donor cells and replace the insulin needles with oral anti-rejection medicine.

He pioneered a similar process at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, which has treated 51 people so far, he said.

Warnock was lured to B.C. about two years ago when a $2.5-million donation from philanthropist Irving "Ike" Barber, of Slocan Forest Products, funded the lab at VGH. He, along with 14 staff members and students, have been working on replicating the procedure and making it available to more people.

"The treatment in Edmonton has been used for people with extremely 'brittle' diabetes," he said. "That is, people with severe low-blood-sugar problems. Here, we're expanding the range of people who can be treated."

The transplant procedure is only available in Edmonton and Vancouver, Warnock said. Other labs in North America haven't perfected the means of extracting cells from donors and keeping them healthy so they'll take over insulin production in recipients.

"Preventing rejection has been a big obstacle," Warnock said. "Getting those extracted from the pancreas so they're healthy has been a big factor."

The lab has about 50 people in its current round of treatment, he said, and hopes to treat an additional 10 people a year. It's limited by a shortage of organ donors from whom healthy pancreas cells can be harvested, Warnock said.

"We do have a strong program to find alternatives," Warnock said. "We're trying to find ways to engineer the cells we need, rather than having to extract them all directly."

For now, he said, to be eligible for the transplant treatment, patients have generally suffered from severe Type 1 diabetes for 10 years or more and have had complications.

"They're people who don't have complete kidney failure or complete blindness," he said. "They're people in whom we think some function can be saved."

The project's medical director is UBC's Dr. David Thompson, Warnock said, and there will shortly be a Web site giving information on the lab and its treatments.