A SMALL group of patients with type 1 diabetes were freed from daily insulin injections for up to four years following a transplant using their own stem cells, Brazilian and US researchers say.
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The results of the clinical trial suggest a stem cell transplant can kickstart the pancreas into generating insulin-producing beta cells, called islets, with the effects lasting an average 30 months.
Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, occurs when the immune system mistakenly destroys islets, removing the ability of the pancreas to produce the insulin needed to process sugar. An estimated 140,000 Australians survive on a lifelong strict routine of diet and insulin injections or an insulin pump.
The landmark results were presented at a special press briefing by the Journal of the American Medical Association in Washington overnight. Richard Burt, of Northwestern University in Chicago, said the procedure - autologous nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation - was "the only treatment capable of reversing type 1 diabetes mellitus in humans".
The risk of severe health complications associated with the disease, such as heart and kidney disease, would also be reduced, he said.
In the trial at the School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto in Brazil, a supply of stem cells was harvested from the bone marrow of 23 recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients.
These cells were treated and infused back into each patient's bloodstream two weeks later, and gradually, at different rates, their need for external insulin was reduced. Of the 23 patients, 20 became completely insulin independent and had normal blood glucose levels.
Twelve patients remained continuously insulin-free for 31 months and one had more than four years without needing exogenous insulin use. Four were insulin-independent for at least three years, as were three patients for two years and four patients for a year.
Eight patients achieved transient independence and resumed insulin use at low doses. In both the continuous and transient-insulin independent groups, the level of C-peptide, a marker that shows the presence of the body's own produced insulin, was significantly greater at 24 and 36 months post-transplant than pre-transplant levels.
