Islet Cell Transplants at Baylor
Baylor Dallas was the first center in Texas to receive FDA permission to independently process pancreatic islet cells for transplantation – another milestone for Baylor’s long list of firsts and a potential treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes and pancreatitis.
In this procedure, the inflamed pancreas is removed and taken to an islet cell laboratory, where specially trained technicians, working under a microscope, extract insulin-producing islet cells. Then they are infused back into the liver while the patient is in the operating room. By extracting the islet cells from the patient’s pancreas and infusing back into the liver, the hope is they will start producing insulin again to ease the diabetes symptoms that results from the removal of the pancreas. Baylor is the only hospital in the southwest performing islet cell transplantation