[Fwd: can you forward for me?]

[Guest guest]

Hey All,

this is from Donna. She tried to get this linked article to go through

the list. Read below.

Kimber

--- can you forward for me?

Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 15:20:59 EDT

From: DJWmck@...

To: hominid2@...

Kimber, I've attached a link to an article that ran in our local

newspaper here.....I can't get it to show up on the group email

list...don't know what I'm doing wrong...maybe you can figure it out.

Thanks,

Donna Womack

Fort Worth, TX

Posted on Wed, Sep. 17, 2003

Hospital to offer pancreas transplants

By M. Perotin

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH - Baylor All Saints Medical Center, which last year launched

Tarrant County's only liver transplant program, now is adding pancreas

transplants to its services.

The Fort Worth hospital has won approval from the United Network for

Organ Sharing to carry out the procedure, and doctors will probably

perform their first pancreas transplant this fall, said Dr. Marlon Levy,

surgical director of Baylor All Saints' transplant program.

" I think it's a step forward, " Levy said. " You now have to leave the

community to do that, oftentimes to Dallas but sometimes other places. "

Pancreas transplants typically are performed on patients with Type 1

diabetes, often in conjunction with a kidney transplant.

The disease, also known as juvenile diabetes, is prompted by the

pancreas' failure to produce insulin, the hormone that allows people to

use sugar as fuel. It afflicts more than 1 million people in the United

States.

The pancreas transplants, from deceased donors, will become the latest

addition to the year-old transplant program at Baylor All Saints, where

doctors have performed 39 kidney transplants and 26 liver transplants

since last summer.

Methodist Fort Worth hospital has been performing kidney

transplants for about a decade. But executives there previously have

said they don't intend to expand their program to compete head-to-head

with Baylor All Saints in the transplant arena.

Pancreas recipients usually are young diabetics who have suffered some

complications of the disease, Levy said.

" To be able to have a working pancreas means they can do away with all

their insulin shots, " Levy said. " They have far greater freedom of

activity, and they feel a lot better. "

Still, transplant recipients do have to take drugs to prevent their

immune systems from rejecting the pancreas.

Some researchers are trying transplants of insulin-producing islet cells

as an alternative. Levy expects to lead a research trial of that

treatment later this year at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.

M. Perotin, mperotin@...

--

Kimber

Vallejo, CA

hominid2@...

Note: All advice given is personal opinion, not equal to that of a licensed

physician or health care professional.