After successful tests by a team of doctors of the Department of Endocrinology, PGIMER, a rare technique of curing Type 2 diabetes through bone marrow derived stem cell transplantation will now be available.

It is expected to be a breakthrough in treatment of patients suffering from this more common type of diabetes at a cost of Rs 20,000.

Acknowledging the technology, a research paper ‘Efficacy of Autologous Bone Marrow Derived Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus’ by a team of doctors, led by Dr A Bhansali will be published this month in an international journal published in the US—Stem Cells and Development.

Of the ten patients on whom this test was conducted in December 2006, two were able to discontinue insulin completely after six months. The insulin requirement came down by 75 per cent for five others while the remaining three did not respond to the treatment.

In this technique, bone marrow is taken from the hip bone of the patient. The stem cells are isolated from the bone marrow after the purification process in a laboratory. An injection of stem cell is prepared which is injected into the blood vessel of the patient that supplies blood to the pancreas, the organ producing insulin.

Dr A Bhansali explained, “After the injection is given to the patient he is monitored for the affect of the therapy for around six months. This therapy is preferred over the current treatment to rejuvenate the beta cell mass while the islet transplantation is losing the favour because of non-availability of cadaver pancreas and loss of functional mass after sometime.”

“With the increase in number of diabetic patients, many are approaching the department for the therapy. It will be available to the patients from next week at the PGIMER, the only medical institute that will be offering this therapy,” said Dr Neelam Marwaha, one of the team members.