China's armed forces have given the green light for the clinical use of their own insulin-producing cell transplant technology which holds out hope for type one diabetics of being able to dispense with insulin injections.

Tan Jianming, project team leader and head of Fuzhou General Hospital of the Nanjing Military Area of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), currently the only hospital approved for the new treatment, said his hospital would probably share the technology with other hospitals throughout the country next year.

The first transplant of pancreatic islet cells and first simultaneous transplant of these cells and kidneys have been approved after the long-term study of patients, the Health Bureau of the PLA Logistics Department announced.

Tan said Chinese doctors had been piloting the transplant treatment on seven diabetes patients since 2003. The patients are aged from 13 to 45. Four of the patients had accepted pancreatic islet cell transplants, two underwent simultaneous transplants and one had the cell transplant after the kidney transplant.

The cells, taken from deceased donors, are injected into the pancreas. Each of the transplants costs about 200,000 yuan (US$ 25,000), according to Beijing News.

The islet cell transplants have freed or partly freed all of the patients from insulin injections. The first transplant of pancreatic islet cells was carried out in January 2003 and the first simultaneous kidney and cell transplant in June 2005.

Type one diabetes inhibits the body's production of insulin requiring sufferers to inject themselves with the hormone to control blood-glucose levels.

World Health Organization figures show China has 50 million diabetics ranking second in the world in terms of incidence of the disease. About 10 percent are type one. The number of diabetics increases by 3,000 every day in China and will reach 100 million by 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2006)