“Rather than waiting until the kidney fails, you may want to be proactive and go for a pancreas transplant, specifically if you have brittle, or labile, diabetes,” says Dr. Rainer Gruessner, Upstate University Hospital’s transplant chief and professor of surgery. He and his team offer these transplant surgeries -- separately or combined with kidney transplants, for patients with diabetes mellitus (the most common cause of kidney failure).
A pancreas transplant can improve the lives of some patients with diabetes and also halt or reverse complications such as diabetic changes in the eyes and kidneys, Gruessner explains. He and Dr. Mark Laftavi, director of the pancreas transplant program, tell how the transplants are done in this week’s program.
Also this week: water safety, and how the 'breast cancer gene' increases a man's risk of prostate cancer.