Diabetes mellitus type 1 is a chronic disease characterized by the lacking of pancreatic insulin-producing cells (islet β-cells) due to autoimmune reactions. Unfortunately, this metabolic disease has been dramatically increased in many countries over recent decades.
Scientific studies have shown that β-cell targeting autoantibodies that appear many months or even years before the disease symptoms. Production of such antibodies is possible only if autoantigens from β-cells have been processed and specifically recognized by dysregulated immune cells, such as antigen-presenting dendritic cells, T-cells, B-cells. Autoimmune reactions lead to the gradual destruction of β-cells resulting in depletion of the insulin-production capacity of the pancreas.
Despite the considerable progress that was achieved with the introduction of insulin-therapy, the problem of diabetes mellitus in far from being solved completely. Due to microvascular and macrovascular complications of diabetes, this disease still considered to be one of the main causes that dramatically decreases the quality of life and causes blindness, heart attack, stroke, renal failure, etc.
The radical treatment could be the whole pancreas transplantation that was initially introduced in 1966. However, this surgery is technically challenging and has many complications.
Promising treatment approach aiming to improve the health condition of patients suffering from diabetes mellitus is the administration of the stem cells. These cells have a remarkable feature to migrate into the place of injury and facilitate regeneration of damaged tissue due to the substitution of damaged and dying cells with the new one and due to the release of trophic factors supporting the functional activity of the tissues and enhancing blood supply of the injured area.
Another important benefit of stem cell treatment is stem cells' pronounced immunomodulatory properties. Owing to complex interactions of stem cells with the immune system, stem cell treatment can decrease the activity of antigen-presenting dendritic cells, T-cells, B-cells that are involved in the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus type 1.
As it was mentioned above, micro- and macrovascular complications of diabetes mellitus affect the functional activity of different organs.
Thus, it is reasonable to use a combination of different organ-specific types of stem cells corresponding to the affected organs of the patient. It is obvious that each certain type of stem cell such as mesenchymal or umbilical cord blood stem cells that are used in the majority of stem cell clinics as monotherapy, cannot be equally efficient for the treatment of a variety of different tissues that can be affected in diabetes mellitus.
In order to achieve better treatment results, specialists of Infinity Clinic have developed a personalized stem cell therapy approach that is based on the administration of several different types of organ-specific stem cells according to individual health status and specific complications of each particular patient.
