Can insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus be cured or prevented? A status report on immunomodulatory strategies and pancreas transplantation.

The past decade has brought advances in our undestanding of the etiology of beta cell destruction leading to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Most patients have an autoimmune process that begins months or years prior to overt disease. There are now reliable techniques to monitor the inflammatory process, with increasingly accurate methods for predicting disease in susceptible individuals. This information should lead to new techniques that will cure or possibly prevent diabetes.