A significant scientific discovery made by a team of researchers into diabetes at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan has been acclaimed in the prestigious scientific review Diabetis as a great step forward.
The article, entitled ‘Autologous pancreatic islet transplantation in the human bone marrow’, followed the announcement by San Raffaele that for the first time doctors had recreated part of the function of the pancreas in the bone marrow of four patients.
After four years of research by Italian doctors, this development has been hailed as “the first unequivocal example of successful engraftment of an endocrine tissue in the bone marrow in humans”.
This scientific work has also received backing from the EU and the National Institute of Transplants.
Providing an overview, the article states: “The liver is the current site of choice for pancreatic islet transplantation, even though it is far from being ideal.
“Four patients who developed diabetes after total pancreastectomy were candidates for the autologous transplantation of pancreatic islet. Since they had contraindications for intraportal infusion, islets were infused in the bone marrow. In all recipients islets engrafted successfully.”
The team’s conclusion is that “thus far we have recorded no adverse events related to the infusion procedure or the presence of islets in the bone marrow. Islet function was sustained up to the maximum follow up of 944 days”.
Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions and is on the increase. It is estimated that it affects 317 million people and about five million die every year as a result of the condition.
In Italy alone, there are three million sufferers while a number of people are not even aware they have the illness.
Malta is one of the European countries with a high incidence of diabetes. In fact, the original plan for what is now Mater Dei hospital was to build an institute of excellence for the research and care of diabetes in the Mediterranean region. This was to be an offshoot of the Scientific University Hospital San Raffaele, which specialises in diabetes.
A number of researchers are working in the field of diabetes. The Boston-based MIT and the University of North Carolina are carrying out advanced studies through a ‘nanococktail’ that flows in the blood and cures the condition. These inject-able nanoparticles have been designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes.
The Corriere della Sera commended the research team at San Raffaele, for showing, for the first time, that bone marrow may be used in such cases.
According to the abstract in Diabetis, it seems that “the encouraging results of this pilot study open new perspectives in identifying alternative sites for islet infusion in patients with type 1 diabetes”.
The team hopes that by next year they will make further progress, even if the transplantation in diabetes patients of type 1 is carried through a donor.
Prof. Lorenzo Piemonti, responsible of the Diabetes Research Institute at San Raffaele, said this research may be one of the unexpected possibilities in the field of regenerative medicine.
I am sharing this information to provide hope to all those who are interested in caring, curing and researching diabetes.