-- The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare approved the pancreas transplantation at Kyushu University first nationwide as a highly advanced medical treatment institute.--

　Ms. Nobuko Ono (tentative name 38 years old), a pancreas transplant recipient at Kyushu University is bright. “I fell as if I all started the life again newly". She underwent the simultaneous pancreas kidney transplantation three years ago. She had been injecting insulin for type 1 diabetes mellitus since the sixth grader, but she developed retinopathy at 25 years old and lost both sight. At 30 years old, she began the dialysis due to secondary renal failure. It was a typical aggravation pattern of type I diabetes mellitus. The transplantation relieved her from painful injection of insulin four times a day and from troublesome dialysis three times a week. She lives a healthy life as the same as other people. She had a chance to know with a computer programmer in last March, got married and moved to Nagoya from Kyushu with her husband.
　In this summer, they succeeded in the ninth pancreas transplantation (eight for simultaneous pancreas kidney transplantation, and one for pancreas after kidney transplantation) at Kyushu University hospital. Because of only 21 cases performed in Japan so far, Kyushu University is No.1 in this field. The man in charge of pancreas transplantation is Dr. Atsushi Sugitani at the First Department (Prof. Masao Tanaka), who run about for support of national pancreas transplant operation. He tells that we should open a way for cadaveric transplantation if it is the best plan for the patients who are saved only by transplantation.
　In Kyushu University hospital, pancreas transplantation was approved as highly advanced medical treatment for the first time nationwide from Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in December, 2004. As a result, it became possible to do a 10,000,000 yen operation by individual payment of 1,160,000 yen. Ninety-five% of diabetic patients in Japan are type 2 diabetes mellitus mostly due to overeating, obesity and exercise lack of. The transplantation team is active also in kidney transplantation for patients with chronic renal failure due to type 2 diabetes mellitus. There were one or two cases per year on average for the past 30 years, but 26 cases last year which was placed in top level in the whole country.

< Illustration> The pancreas is transplanted with duodenum first, then the kidney into the other side.