Diabetes
Treatment
and Management:
Transplantation
One of the most significant long-term complications of diabetes is
kidney failure. The two treatment options for patients with kidney failure
are kidney dialysis and kidney transplantation. The cost of kidney dialysis
for patients with diabetes is so high that, in the long run, transplantation
may be the more cost-effective choice. In addition, compared to dialysis,
transplantation usually offers a patient with kidney failure a better
quality of life.
Sometimes kidney transplantation
patients with diabetes who undergo transplantation at UPMC receive a donor
pancreas as well as a kidney. A few diabetes patients who require other
types of transplants (such as a heart or liver) may also be given a pancreas.
By replacing the diseased pancreas along with the other organ, doctors
can sometimes cure diabetes outright.
If a new pancreas
can cure diabetes, why not just use pancreas transplantation to treat
diabetes before kidney failure results? Right now, the side effects of
the drugs necessary to prevent organ rejection, and the overall risk of
pancreas transplantation, do not quite make a pancreas transplant worth
the risk unless a patient needs to undergo another type of transplantation
as well. But researchers are studying pancreas transplantation —
as well as artificial implants and islet cell transplants that can take
over the insulin-producing job of the pancreas — in the hope of making
the procedure safer and appropriate for more patients with diabetes.
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