CHICAGO (CBS) – A groundbreaking treatment for type 1 diabetes shows promising results for patients in Chicago. It is a minimally invasive procedure that could mean that diabetics do not have to inject themselves with insulin.
Three patients from University of Chicago Medicine are in the trial for the treatment. One is off insulin. The other reduces his insulin needs and hopes to stop doing so soon.
“This drug has great potential to be less toxic to the patient and to be more beneficial and provide better outcomes in islet transplantation,” says Dr. Piotr Witkowski, professor of surgery at UChicago Medicine.
The drug, tegoprubart, has been adapted over the past 25 years to produce positive results for patients with type 1 diabetes who use insulin, like Marlaina Goedel.
“I have so much more energy,” Goedel said. “I feel so free.”
She has lived with type 1 diabetes for 25 years. She calls the experience chaos from the time she was 5 years old.
“I went to sleep at night thinking, ‘This could be my last night. I might not wake up and never see my daughter again,'” she said.
Goedel said her turning point was when her daughter found her on the floor after her sugar crashed. She then talked to three doctors about islet cell clinical trials, but got nowhere until she did research.
“I emailed the University of Chicago and basically just wrote down my whole life story and just said, ‘Please help. I’ve had enough,'” she said.
That was last October and on July 17th she went in for her procedure.
“I have a really cool scar,” she said. “I show it to anyone who wants to look at it. They just made a very small incision and then injected the islet cells into my liver, because my pancreas isn’t working. So they injected them into the liver.”
Three weeks later she was off insulin. For this, she thanked her co-investigator on the superhero trial, Dr. Witkowski.
“Her life was seriously compromised and she could no longer live like this,” Witkowski said.
Three months later, Goedel is living a life like never before, which often includes double cheeseburgers.
“It was amazing and I look forward to helping other diabetics get their hope back,” she said.
Witkowski really hopes that they can expand the group of patients they can help so they can continue the life-changing transplant. Because Goedel was unable to realize her dream of a horse stable, she is now following a training course in horse massage and laser therapy.
