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By Anatoly Medetsky
As the curtain was falling on the old year, Vladivostok doctors pioneered innovative transplant operations in the Russian Far East to cure diabetic patients. Professor Anatoly Malyshev transplanted Dec. 25 rabbit pancreatic cells to Primorye's three diabetics able to pay 7,000 rubles apiece ($320) for the transplants -- a woman of 23 and men aged 22 and 50. The method, which prevents the aggravation of diabetes and reduces insulin dependency by 20 percent within eighteen months to two years, is new. In Russia it has been tried only in Moscow and Novosibirsk. Cell suspension comes from the Moscow-based Institute of Artificial Organ Transplantation. Professor Malyshev conducted the surgeries in Second River's Fishermen's Hospital, which will be the base institution for such operations from now on. The hospital is home to a regional diabetics center. International studies in the area began in 1960, and physicians have tried to transplant pancreatic cells from human corpses, live cattle, and pigs. That didn't work because the patients' bodies rejected the foreign cells. Finally, scientists at the institute found a solution: the cells of newborn rabbits with intact immune systems. The cells are injected into abdominal muscles, where they produce insulin, doctors said. Although the first rabbit cell transplant was performed in Moscow in 1989, it took nine years for the technique to reach Vladivostok because the city didn't have a central place for the treatment of diabetes until early 1998, said Larisa Kasnitskaya, chief of the diabetics center. After the patients raised the money to pay for the cells, the institute took two weeks to prepare a suspension -- a medical term for the solution including the rabbit pancreatic cells. It was flown to Vladivostok, where doctors and patients were waiting in the operating room. Professor Malyshev, who is in charge of the Surgery Sub-Department at Vladivostok State Medical University, agreed to do the surgeries free. "I'm not a backer of paid medicine. Maybe free medicine will come back some time," said Malyshev, who has practiced for 30 years and has never charged for a surgery. He accepts only his basic salary, paid by the state. Diabetes can have serious side effects and can potentially be fatal over time. One patient grew blind from the disease, another developed a mental illness, and the third one had exceptionally high sugar levels. The cells will halt further complications, but the blind patient's eyesight won't return, doctors said. Two patients checked out Dec. 30 and one Dec. 31, and all of them were reportedly feeling good. The advent of the new treatment to Primorye gives hope of relief to almost 2,500 local diabetes patients. However, for three to five percent defined as "hopeless diabetics," the method is ineffective. Malyshev is prepared to perform three to five surgeries per day. Each takes his team an hour.
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