TREG – an innovative method of treating type I diabetes – is beginning to be available to patients. Thanks to the invention of Polish scientists from the Medical University of Gdańsk, children and adolescents with newly diagnosed type I diabetes have a chance to significantly improve the quality of life. However, not every patient can be qualified for therapy.
Type I diabetes is becoming a scourge in Poland and affects mainly children – they constitute 90 percent of the population. patients with this diagnosis. It often begins in early childhood, so young patients do not remember life without an insulin pen or an insulin pump. Every year around the world 80-100 thousand people develop type I diabetes. children, of which about 2 thousand. cases are in Poland. Unfortunately, this number in our country doubles every 10 years.
Type I diabetes is caused by an autoimmune process, which is when the immune system destroys its own tissues. Currently, there are no drugs that can stop this process – over time, type I diabetes will lead to the complete destruction of the pancreatic islets. The patient can only be offered insulin. Fortunately, modern medicine develops newer and newer methods of therapy, in which the effects of classic drugs are strengthened or even replaced by the latest scientific achievements. Such an approach is cell therapy, in which cells taken from the patient’s or donor’s body or artificially created in scientific laboratories become drugs.
Cellular drugs, or the TREG method
The Polish laboratory is the first in the world to start work on the use of regulatory T lymphocytes (Tregs) in human treatment. The uniqueness of the therapy consists in combating the causes of the disease, not only the clinical symptoms, which improves the clinical parameters and the quality of life of young patients.
The creators of the innovative TREG method are top-class specialists from the Medical University of Gdańsk: prof. dr hab. n. med. Piotr Trzonkowski, head of the Chair and Department of Medical Immunology, prof. dr hab. n. med. Małgorzata Myśliwiec, head of the Department and Clinic of Paediatrics, Diabetology and Endocrinology and prof. dr hab. n. med. Natalia Marek-Trzonkowska, Head of the Cancer Immunology Group at the International Center for Cancer Vaccine Science at the University of Gdańsk.
To fully understand the TREG method, you need to understand the causes of type I diabetes. Healthy patients have adequate amounts of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in their blood to ensure that the immune system fights infections and that it does not destroy its own tissues. – in a way, they teach other cells of the immune system to distinguish between themselves and others. In patients with type I diabetes, there are too few regulatory T lymphocytes or they do not reach the pancreas at the right time. As a result, the immune system no longer distinguishes foreign cells (e.g. bacteria) from its own, which leads to a situation in which the own blood cells destroy the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.
In the TREG method patented by Polish scientists, the patient’s own cells (regulatory T lymphocytes) are collected, multiplied in the laboratory and given to the patient again. By increasing the number of Tregs cells in the body, people suffering from type I diabetes have a chance to at least partially preserve the function of the pancreas. This is very important because your own insulin is secreted precisely and protects better than a state-of-the-art insulin pump.
Who is modern therapy intended for?
To qualify for modern therapy, patients must meet specific criteria. Patients up to 18 years of age may be treated, but only if they have been diagnosed with type I diabetes relatively recently and their pancreatic function has been preserved in at least 20-30%. It should be remembered that TREG therapy does not regenerate the islets pancreatic, and only protects the still functioning islands against destruction. The pool of living pancreatic islets must therefore be large enough to obtain a sufficient number of regulatory T lymphocytes, which will be multiplied in the laboratory. Polish scientists estimate that out of approx. 2 newly diagnosed patients annually, several hundred people would qualify for administration of the cellular drug TREG.
What are the effects of TREG treatment?
TREG therapy allows you to reduce the need for administered insulin. Some patients have an extended so-called honeymoon, which is the period when they don’t need insulin at all. What Polish scientists are most pleased about is the secretion of their own insulin by patients even five years after treatment. Even after such a long period of time – patients who received these cells – still have a burst of their own insulin after a meal, proof that the pancreas is still functioning. It is not as high as in a healthy person, but it is significant. For a diabetic patient, this is of great importance, because even if he is already taking insulin injections, the addition of his own insulin from the pancreas allows for much more precise control of blood glucose levels, which protects him from complications.
– Nowadays, diabetes is a death of complications. Over the years of the disease, the patient will develop problems with his eyesight, kidneys or the circulatory system, while his own insulin – even in small amounts – will allow him to postpone the occurrence of these complications for several or even several dozen years. In a sense, we are fighting for a good quality of life for the patient in the future. Considering that children are most often sick, it is worth fighting for it. – says prof. dr hab. n. med. Piotr Trzonkowski, head of the Chair and Department of Medical Immunology, MUG and co-founder of the POLTREG company dealing with the development and commercialization of the patented TREG Method.
Currently, the TREG method is entering the 3rd phase of clinical trials and is starting to be available to patients of the University Clinical Center in Gdańsk. Therapy is provided under a hospital exception, i.e. treatment is offered before central registration, on the basis of ATMP (Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products) status, granted by the European Medicines Agency. This unique possibility is due to the fact that there are currently no other therapies in the world that treat type I diabetes in a causal way. Studies have proven that the TREG method is safe for the patient and is effective in maintaining the pancreatic function in patients diagnosed with type I diabetes.