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Experimental treatment frees some from daily insulin shots
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 28, 2006
A few diabetics have been able to give up their daily insulin shots after getting transplants of pancreas cells, according to the broadest study of this experimental treatment. But for most patients, the results fell short of the cure researchers have been seeking. Almost half of the 36 patients who received the cell transplant achieved insulin independence by one year after the treatment. The benefits were mixed for the others, and about three-quarters of the whole group relapsed and needed insulin injections again. The patients had severe cases of Type 1 diabetes, the less common form once known as juvenile diabetes, which is not linked to obesity. Experts said the treatment, involving pancreas cells from donated cadavers, holds promise and they think it won't be long before doctors figure out how to extend the benefit to more diabetics. Researchers, reporting their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine, said they did not know why it worked in some people and not others. The treatment is not yet available at U.S. hospitals.
[Last modified September 28, 2006, 00:30:47]
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