UMC Performing Pancreas Transplant Surgery;
Once Again Offers Hope to People with Type 1 Diabetes
 

Contact: Jo Marie Gellerman, 626-7219                                               April 17, 2006
 
A 46-year-old Tucson mother with type 1 diabetes received a donated pancreas April 4 at University Medical Center -- UMC’s first pancreas transplant since it reactivated its Pancreas Transplant Program after a four-year hiatus. The patient was discharged from the hospital in good condition.

This operation will allow her not only to be insulin free, but also to prevent the progression, and even to partially reverse many of the complications, associated with diabetes.    Nearly 15 million Americans have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as 1 million of those cases are type 1 diabetes, according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
 UMC’s Abdominal Transplant Program got a boost last summer with the hiring of distinguished transplant surgeon Ernesto P. Molmenti, MD, PhD, MBA, who was recruited from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Molmenti is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and also co-authored The Atlas of Liver Transplantation (W.B. Saunders Company; 1st edition, July 15, 2002), recently translated into Chinese and Japanese. 

 

Dr. Molmenti, professor of surgery and chief of Abdominal Transplantation at The University of Arizona College of Medicine, led the pancreas transplant surgery. He was assisted by John Porter, MD, professor of clinical surgery, and Scott Polson, MD, associate professor of clinical anesthesiology. Clinically, Dr. Molmenti worked with Sam James, MD, associate professor of medicine.

“With the reactivation of pancreas transplantation, UMC becomes the only hospital in Southern Arizona and one of only three hospitals in the state that offer full abdominal transplants -- liver, kidney and pancreas,” says Hugo Villar, MD, professor and interim head of the UA Department of Surgery.

“We are so excited to be able to, once again, offer this life-saving procedure to the people of the Southwest. Dr. Molmenti’s coming to UMC means new hope for many, many patients,” says UMC President and CEO Greg Pivirotto.

Although this marks Dr. Molmenti’s first pancreas transplant at UMC, he has performed many of these procedures at Johns Hopkins, the University of Pittsburgh and at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Molmenti also specializes in liver and kidney transplants, as well as liver resections and surgery of the biliary tract.

MEDICAL WRITERS/ASSIGNMENT EDITORS NOTE: If you are interested in interviewing the patient or physicians, please call AHSC Public Affairs at (520) 626-7301.

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