Immunotherapy in type I diabetes. Approaches to prevention and treatment.

Considerable advances in the understanding of the immune basis of type I diabetes have encouraged trials of a number of forms of immunotherapy. Preliminary evidence indicates that cyclosporin (Sandimmune) treatment can halt beta cell destruction in about 50% of patients with newly diagnosed type I diabetes. Further studies are necessary to define the toxicity of this and other protocols prior to clinical use. Efforts to define the target antigen in type I diabetes may lead to development of more specific forms of immunotherapy or, possibly, a vaccine.