SC Clean Lab Used For Pancreatic Treatment

A Medical University of South Carolinaclean lab is being used for a treatment that sounds more likescience fiction.

By: Associated Press | WSAV News 3
Published: March 19, 2009

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A Medical University of South Carolina
clean lab is being used for a treatment that sounds more like
science fiction.
Officials say the hospital is the first in the state - and one
of only a handful nationwide - to perform a same-patient cell
transplant for pancreatitis. The patient is an Aiken woman who
leaves MUSC Thursday.
Patients with pancreatitis suffer complications and severe pain.
The answer is to remove the pancreas, but that makes a patient
subject to diabetes because they can no longer produce insulin.
In the operation, the pancreas is removed and taken to the clean
lab where insulin-producing cells are in turn removed. Those cells
are later placed back in the patient's liver and work like a small
pancreas.