 |
|
Isolated Pancreas Transplantation for Type 1 Diabetes
A Doctor's Dilemma
David M. Nathan, MD
JAMA. 2003;290:2861-2863.
|
|
| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
|
|
|
The primary goal for organ replacement therapy, achieved by allografting, should be to preserve life. Some transplantation procedures, such as those for the heart, liver, and lung, are necessary to preserve life, while others (eg, those for the cornea and pancreas) are not. Type 1 diabetes, a uniformly fatal disease prior to the introduction of insulin therapy approximately 80 years ago, represents an interesting case for transplantation. Insulin therapy reduced the occurrence of the metabolic catastrophe ketoacidosis and of death by inanition that characterized diabetes in the preinsulin era; however, until recently, insulin therapy also achieved grossly nonphysiologic metabolic control that was associated with long-term complications, including vision loss, amputations, and kidney failure.1
The development of kidney failure shortened life-span substantially and kidney transplantation was the first transplant procedure to have a profound effect in patients with diabetes. Although randomized clinical trials comparing dialysis and transplantation . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Author Affiliations: Diabetes Center and General Clinical Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
RELATED ARTICLE
Survival After Pancreas Transplantation in Patients With Diabetes and Preserved Kidney Function
Jeffrey M. Venstrom, Maureen A. McBride, Kristina I. Rother, Boaz Hirshberg, Trevor J. Orchard, and David M. Harlan
JAMA. 2003;290(21):2817-2823.
ABSTRACT
| FULL TEXT
|
