And I thought there are only 3 types of diabetes! (type 1, type 2 and type G- gestational, the pregnancy-induced one).

Have you ever heard or read about pancreatogenic diabetes? This is the first for me too.

[One of the reasons I love health science blogging, because I learn new things everyday, as I blog about them.]

Anyway, going back to pancreatogenic diabetes... it is a severe form of diabetes that occurs after partial removal of the pancreas.

Total or partial removal of the pancreas is recommended for patients with severe cases of pancreatitis in which pancreas tissue dies, after all attempts to control pain and improve mal-absorption problems are exhausted.

Our pancreas is where insulin is produced. With it gone or parts of it gone... pancreatogenic diabetes comes in.

Mayo Clinic doctors have reported a new hope for patients with pancreatogenic diabetes - a procedure called "pancreatic islet cell autotransplantation".

The procedure involves isolation and purification of insulin-producing cells (islets) after the entire, or part of the, pancreas is removed. The islets, which are injected into the patient, make their way to the liver, implant there, and begin producing insulin.

So far the procedure has been tested on three patients, wherein two did not develop pancreatogenic diabetes while the other one developed a less complicated form of this kind of diabetes.

2 out of 3 aren't bad at all but then of course, the procedure needs testing on larger patient population.

According to co-lead investigator Yogish C. Kudva, an endocrinologist and associate director of Mayo's human islet isolation laboratory:

"Our initial experience with pancreatic islet autotransplantation in this patient population shows that the procedure is a feasible treatment option.

Long-term follow up, expansion to additional patients and research studies will help us better understand the fully utility of this procedure."

I wonder what are the statistics on pancreatogenic diabetes...maybe because it's so severe, not many people actually get it. But then it is reassuring to know that pancreatic islet cell autotransplantation worked on those two patients. Let us hope it worked on more with the same condition.

This study finding has been presented last week at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Washington, D.C.

There goes the fourth type of diabetes in my book: pancreatogenic diabetes - the pancreatic surgery-induced one.

Source: Mayo Clinic

[photo credit: endrocrine web]