Double Transplant Can Improve Quality of Life for Diabetics

Combined transplant raises life expectancy of type 1 diabetics with kidney failure

28 December 2010

The surgeons sew a piece of small intestine from the transplanted pancreas to Tiffany Buchta's own intestine during her double transplant surgery.

Diabetes affects more than 220 million people worldwide, with the greatest number of cases in India, China and the United States. It can lead to life-threatening complications, but a double organ transplant can give some diabetics a new lease on life.

It's 5:30 a.m. in an operating room at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Surgeon Jason Wellen points to his patient's open abdominal cavity, and her newly transplanted pancreas.

"Here's the vein where the blood flows out, that we made a connection - you see the sutures right there?"

A light blue surgical sheet covers the rest of the patient's body and blocks the surgeon's view of her face. Her name is Tiffany Buchta. She has type 1 diabetes.

Early diagnosis

Before the surgery, Buchta - an administrator at a local community center - continued to work fulltime even when she was on dialysis.

She was diagnosed at 15. Formerly known as juvenile diabetes, the type 1 form develops when the body's immune system turns on itself, destroying the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. About 10 percent of diabetics have this form of the disease.