Possible Cures for Type-1 in the News (late April)

Alefacept Starts a phase-II Clinical Trial
This study is also called "T1DAL", which I'm sure is pronounced "tidal".

This drug targets the immune system's T cells, and is already approved for treating "plaque psoriasis" which is an autoimmune disease similar to type-1 diabetes.  It has a good safety profile there. The hope is that by giving it to honeymoon type-1 diabetics, beta cells will be preserved.


Because this is an ITN trial, there is a long list of sites where you can participate. For the locals: UCSF is the only California location.  They expect enrollment to take 2 years, but (of course) I hope it fills up sooner than that.  The sooner they finish recruiting, the sooner we learn the results.  The trial is for people within 100 days of diagnosis, and requires weekly injections for 12 weeks, followed by 12 weeks "off", followed by another 12 weeks of injections.

Estimated Enrollment:  66

Study Start Date:  March 2011

Estimated Study Completion Date:  August 2014

Estimated Primary Completion Date:  August 2013 (Final data collection date primary outcome)

Web page: http://www.immunetolerance.org/news/2011/04/itn-announces-enrollment-first-participant-t1dal-trial-people-recently-diagnosed-type-1
Recruiting web site: http://www.t1dal.org/
Clinical Trial: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT00965458

Artificial Pancreas Trial Handles Dinner and Night

Hovorka's team at Cambridge University continues to make progress on testing their AP. These most recent results are aimed at showing that their AP can deal with dinner and the night after dinner. They tested with both a simulated "at home" dinner (fewer carbs, earlier in the evening) and an "out" dinner (more carbs, alcohol, and later in the evening).  The study was small (12 people) and "cross over" meaning that half used a pump and half used an AP for the "eat in" dinner, and then they switch (previously pumpers do AP, previous AP use their pumps), and have another "eat in" dinner, and then do again for the "eat out" dinner.  Each person was in the test group once, and in the untreated group once, for each meal scenario.

"For the eating-in scenario, overnight closed loop delivery increased the time plasma glucose levels were in target by a median 15 percent," said Hovorka. For the eating out scenario, the average time good blood sugar control was increased was 28 percent on average. And, when combined, the average increase in blood sugar control was 22 percent, according to the study.

Remember, the goal for FDA approval for something like this is as good control as a pump, so 22% better than a pump is more than good enough.  Now, to get insurance to pay for it, it will need to do better than a pump, but this trial shows that it is.  My reading of the study, is that they did tell the pump the number of carbs eaten at the meal, so this is what the JDRF would call a stage 4 AP.  (A stage 5 AP would not need to be told ahead of time about carbs in food.)  You can read my general background for AP research (including stages) here:
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/2009/09/background-for-artifical-pancreas.html

I know there has been some interest in how accurate CGMs really are.  This is what the study found:

The accuracy of the sensor, evaluated as the median relative absolute difference between sensor glucose levels and paired plasma glucose levels divided by plasma glucose levels, was 8.0% (4.5-19.3%) in the eating in scenario and 12.0% (6.8-17.2%) in the eating out scenario.

News coverage: http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/651955.html
Full paper: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1855.full   (Thank you BMJ!)

Team Brazil Rolls
In the past, I have blogged about what I call the "Burt" research, which you can read here:
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/search/label/Burt
but it was done in Brazil, so maybe that is a better term for it.  This research uses the patient's own hematopoietic stem cells. (remember that)

In any case, it is by far the most successful research aimed at curing honeymoon type-1 diabetics.  Most of the people treated were insulin free for months, many for years.  Some for five years or longer.  These are much better results than anyone else.  But those results came at a cost of safety.  Although no one died or suffered serious side effects, the treatment involves significant risk.  At least one researcher (not part of this team) has estimated that the chance of dying would be "less than 1%" (personal communications with me), but that is way too high for most people to accept.

So the question is, how does this research move forward?  There have been several different answers, as you might expect:

1. Haller's CSGF+ATG studies are trying a similar treatment, but without the most dangerous drug.
2. Snarski is replicating the Brazilian trial, and getting similar results (and no serious side effects so far).
3. Now in this paper: a Chinese group is replicating their work.  University of Naijing (2006) found that of 5 patients treated within 3 months of dx, 4 of them used no injected insulin for a time.  However, of 11 patients treated after 3 months of diagnosis, none became free of injected insulin.  So the good news here is that the replicated the results.  The bad news is that it looks very honeymoon dependent.  In the past, I had hoped that this treatment might also work for established type-1 diabetics, but this trial shows that isn't true.
4. And also in this paper: the original group is trying to use mesenchymal stem cells (a different type of stem cell than used previously.  This protocol is significantly safer than the current one.  The following paragraph from the paper describes the new protocol:

The protocol includes bone marrow biopsy under general anesthesia in first-degree relatives for the collection of mesenchymal cells. These cells are sent to a laboratory to be stimulated to proliferate for a month and are later infused into the patient ...; there is no need for chemotherapy. The patient is hospitalized for 1 day but only as a precaution. After 1 month, the patient receives another infusion. ... Inclusion criteria are age 12 to 35 years, diagnosis of T1DM less than 4 weeks prior to treatment without ketoacidosis and positive serum levels of anti-GAD. So far [in 2008] , two patients have been included in this protocol and, as soon as we have a proper follow-up, the results will be published.

The paper below is an overview written by this research team.  It describes the background for their original research, the results they got, and continue to get, and (new to me) extentions of their work (items 3 and 4 above).

Full paper: http://www.springerlink.com/content/hq7882r31162332t/fulltext.pdf  (Thank you Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome!)

Another Overview Paper

This is a readable overview paper by Jay S. Skyler and Camillo Ricordi, both very big names in type-1 diabetes research.  The title is "Stopping Type 1 Diabetes: Attempts to Prevent or Cure Type 1 Diabetes in Man".  Thanks to Ellen at CWD for pointing out this paper to me.
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/1/1.long


Joshua Levy
All the views expressed here are those of Joshua Levy, and nothing here is official JDRF or JDCA news, views, policies or opinions.
Blog: http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com
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