NHS Scotland announced today, in a reasonably sensible and balanced press release that “the Scottish National Pancreatic Islet Transplant Programme, launched in November 2009, has now carried out three islet cell infusions in two patients who as a result, no longer require insulin or risk the loss of consciousness due to hypoglycaemic attack.”
This dog is pleased to see some progress in this area and jolly pleased that it seems to be making a difference for two of our pancreatically challenged peers.
Cynical bloggers have commented before on ShootUp about whether this is the best use of funds when it comes to delivering good quality healthcare to all so we won’t go there again. However, this dog would be interested to know if the recipient quoted as having “no awareness of my blood sugar levels or if I was about to collapse” whilst on 4 injections a day prior to the transplant had been given the opportunity to try using a pump and CGM to see if that would make a difference, rather than an invasive proceedure with limited success and potential side effects from anti-rejection drugs (which are conveniently omitted from the press release). Just wondering, that’s all.
4 thoughts on “Islet cell transplants in Scotland”