Diabetes can be fully cured if the patient undergoes simultaneous transplant of both the kidney and the pancreas and not just of kidney alone, director of transplantation and associate dean of Asian health affairs, P R Rajagopalan has said.

Speaking at a function organised by the Kidney Care Society of India in Jaipur on Sunday, Rajagopalan said that all complications and related diabetic problems could not be solved with kidney transplant alone.

He said that simultaneous transplantation of kidney and pancreas saved diabetic patients from complications such as loss of vision and amputation of organs.

Though transplant of pancreas was being performed in US and other European countries since 1990, it was yet to be done in India due to non-availability of cadaver donors, lack of proper preservation facilities for pancreatic cells and other technical problems.

He said that the success rate of pancreatic transplantation was as high as 80 per cent and a patient after a transplant would be fit to resume normal activities within 10 to 15 days.

The cost of such transplant was between $ 70 to 100 thousand US, he said.

Bureau Report
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