Can someone have a pancreas transplant?!
Question: in light of Patrick swayze's untimely diagnoses of pancreatic cancer and my mother having type 2 diabetes. I was wondering if someone could have a pancreas transplant. I mean take out a non working one and put in a new one boom, insulin production. This could also help people with type 1 diabets. . . or is it not as simple as i think? Has there ever been one attempted?
Answers: in light of Patrick swayze's untimely diagnoses of pancreatic cancer and my mother having type 2 diabetes. I was wondering if someone could have a pancreas transplant. I mean take out a non working one and put in a new one boom, insulin production. This could also help people with type 1 diabets. . . or is it not as simple as i think? Has there ever been one attempted?
Yes
The healthy pancreas is obtained from a donor who has suffered brain-death, but remains on life-support. The donor pancreas must meet numerous criteria to make sure it is suitable.
In addition to insulin, the pancreas produces other secretions, such as digestive enzymes, which drain through the pancreatic duct into the duodenum. Therefore, a portion of the duodenum is removed with the donor pancreas. The healthy pancreas is transported in a cooled solution that preserves the organ for up to 20 hours.
The patient's diseased pancreas is not removed during the operation. The donor pancreas is usually inserted in the right lower portion of the patient's abdomen and attachments are made to the patient's blood vessels. The donor duodenum is attached to the patient's intestine or bladder to drain pancreatic secretions.
The operation is usually done at the same time as a kidney transplant in diabetic patients with kidney disease.
yeah when i was 8 years old and recently diagnosed with type 1 i asked the same thing and thought i was pretty smart but then i found out that that would actually be harder to manage than diabetes or cancer
sorry
I had an uncle who was type 1. He had only 30% usage of 1 kidney and was considered legaly blind. Almost 14 years ago he went to Philadelphia for an experimental pancreas and kidney transplant. He did well for a long time. Unfortunatily he had a heart attack last year and passed away. As a type 1 myself I would hope that very soon a diabetic can have a transplant before coming to a point that they are barely surviving!
Yes it is possible to have a pancreas transplant, however, the odds that the pancreas will be accepted by the body is extremely low.