“It’s not the same as being fully reliant on it,” she says. Eventually, though, they’ll need supplemental insulin. Bellin says TP-IAT patients treated by M Health Fairview experts have stayed off insulin for anywhere between three to 20 years. “Islets have to settle in the liver,” Bellin says, “so everyone is on insulin for a few months after surgery.”Įventually, about 30% of patients can come off insulin supplementation as their islets take over. Without a pancreas, Meek takes a shot of insulin each day and tracks her blood sugar levels. Louis, and New York to see her far-flung grandchildren (pictured with Meek above and below) regularly. And she’s back up and out of bed, traveling to San Francisco, St. She and her husband, Ted Meek, enjoy cooking and sharing meals with friends and going out on the town. Bellin says the portal vein works best because it branches into an intricate tangle of smaller blood vessels that deliver the slurry into the liver and ensure it cannot flow back out. The team then brings the tissue slurry back to the operating room in an IV bag, where surgeons infuse it into the patient via the portal vein outside the liver. There, experts isolate the organ’s insulin-producing islet tissue and mix it into a slurry. In this procedure at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, a surgical team removes the patient’s pancreas, and a transport team swiftly takes it to the Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics (MCT) facility on the University’s Twin Cities campus in St. “TP-IAT is the definitive, but very major, intervention that can help,” Bellin says. Arain told Meek that she needed her pancreas out and Beilman was the best person in the world for the job. Arain trained and worked at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center with Greg Beilman, M.D., a professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School Department of Surgery and lead surgeon for the M Health Fairview TP-IAT program. Meek’s concerned daughter-in-law, who leads the breast oncology program at the University of California San Francisco, recommended Meek see Mustafa Arain, M.D., a gastroenterologist there. She was stuck in a holding pattern of eating a highly restrictive diet, being bedridden with severe pain, and making and canceling plans to see her grandchildren across the country. Meek’s acute pancreatitis left her extremely fatigued. Blocked fluids in the pancreas cause the whole system to break down. Still, the pancreas dutifully churns to life at any given hour to infuse our food with enzymes that break down carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, transforming them into energy and sending waste on its way to the intestines.īut if the pancreatic duct is defective or gets clogged, digestive juices can’t travel their usual route through the body. Those of us with a healthy pancreas move through our daily lives without ever considering it. But by December 2019, Meek began experiencing symptoms of acute pancreatitis, and these medical management measures just weren’t cutting it anymore. After being diagnosed with a congenital defect in her pancreatic duct at age 34, Meek spent more than three decades managing the problem through a series of stents, dietary adjustments, and medications. Corniea Chair.īellin is a part of a multidisciplinary team focused on this procedure and made up of surgeons, gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, pain management experts, health psychologists, nurse coordinators, dietitians, and physical therapists. From there, we found it was remarkably valuable for disabling forms of pancreatitis,” says Melena Bellin, M.D., a professor in the Medical School departments of Surgery and Pediatrics and holder of the Albert D. “The islet autotransplant was developed as a test model for cell therapy for type 1 diabetes. Then, through a specialized procedure, the organ’s insulin-producing islet cells are rescued and transplanted into the patient’s liver to prevent or reduce the burden of diabetes after surgery. In a TP-IAT, the pancreas is removed to take away the severe abdominal pain caused by pancreatitis. Today, the M Health Fairview program is not only the longest-running TP-IAT program in the world, but it also has treated upward of 800 patients-more than anywhere else. The innovative procedure was pioneered at the U of M in the late 1970s by David Sutherland, M.D., Ph.D., a professor emeritus in the Medical School’s Department of Surgery. In February 2021, the Indianapolis woman wound back the clock with a total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplant (TP-IAT). Her secret? Having her pancreas removed at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center.
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