On Jul. 30, 2002, clinical researchers announced they had teamed together to perform the first human islet transplants in the Northwest. Three patients with type 1 diabetes received the transplanted islets, enabling them to produce their own insulin for the first time in decades. Such success, according to the Seattle team, helps confirm islet transplantation as a potential long-term cure for diabetes.

One of the recipients, a 35-year-old woman, was diagnosed with diabetes when she was fourteen. Another recipient, 41 years old now, has been diabetic since she was 7. She received a simultaneous kidney-islet transplant in a procedure the Seattle team is pioneering. The third patient, a 44-year-old man, also received a kidney-islet transplant.

All three patients have now achieved critical post-transplant success in the management of their blood-sugar levels. All are participating in the Seattle research program as part of an international evaluation of islet transplantation funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

In type 1 diabetes, insulin-producing cells, clustered together in what are called islets (pronounced “eye-lets”), are destroyed so that the body becomes insulin-deficient. When islets are transplanted from a donated pancreas, they take up residence in a recipient’s liver and secrete insulin to reestablish normal control of the body’s blood sugar metabolism.

The JDRF Center for Human Islet Transplantation in Seattle (HITS) is one of nine sites testing the islet-only transplant procedure pioneered by the University of Edmonton in Canada. In addition to testing the Edmonton procedure, the Seattle researchers are also conducting islet transplants in conjunction with routine kidney replacement operations for diabetes patients with kidney disease. Following both procedures, transplant patients take immunosuppressive drugs to protect the new islets from being rejected.