According to researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beer-Sheva, Israel, inflammation that can cause failure of liver transplants can be eliminated when diabetic animals are treated with alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT) after an islet transplantation procedure.
It was remarked by Dr. Eli Lewis, director of the Clinical Islet Laboratory at BGU that inflammation can be inhibited through a non-toxic, safe, and non-steroidal drug by targeting multiple inflammatory molecules.
From Sciencedaily.com:
Unfortunately, islet mass is rapidly reduced after engraftment by robust local inflammation. Even more unfortunate for the grafted cells, there is no anti-inflammatory coverage due to the removal of steroids from immunosuppression protocol. For this reason, the typical islet recipient will receive at least two grafts in order to restore glucose levels. But perhaps the most discouraging information is that five-year islet cell function follow-up studies reveal unacceptably high islet erosion caused in part by unrestrained ongoing inflammation. There is, therefore, great demand for an anti-inflammatory islet survival regimen that is safe, feasible and effective.
“The study comes at a critical time since the therapy that the transplant teams have been using seems to have turned its back on the patients, with more than 80 percent of recipients returning to insulin injections after five years,” Dr. Lewis explains. “While many are discouraged by the method, our paper recommends a safe, well known and widely used drug to provide exactly the coverage that is currently missing to make the transplants succeed. In fact, we’re almost replacing the need for steroids in this specific setup by blocking inflammation where steroids would have.”
The study by Lewis received great scientific support from a parallel study performed at the Transplant Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts.
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