[Use of cyclosporin A for remission induction in newly-detected insulin-dependent diabetes].

It has been postulated that some of the recent-onset insulin-dependent diabetics, after the initial use of insulin therapy, might develop the "honey moon period", i.e., a spontaneous remission of the disease, defined as the state of normal metabolic control maintained without insulin therapy. However, it has also been shown that spontaneous remission appears only in 5% of the patients treated with conventional insulin therapy and lasts, most frequently, not more than a few weeks. Different therapeutic regimens of immunosuppression and immunomodulation have been used worldwide in order to induce the remission, based on the findings that an autoimmune process underlies the pathogenesis of this type of diabetes. In this study, we have shown the results of the follow-up analysis of the effects of the treatment with cyclosporin A in 21 recent-onset insulin-dependent diabetics. In 15 of those patients insulin treatment was applied as bi-daily doses of monocomponent insulin preparations, and in 6 of them intensified insulin therapy with human insulin was used. In the first group, the remission was achieved in 46.66% and in the second group in 66.66%, which is a significantly higher incidence than in control groups treated only with insulin, without cyclosporin. Moreover, the duration of remission was longer in the patients treated with cyclosporin. The analysis of the residual beta cell secretory capacity has shown that C-peptide levels (taken as a marker for insulin secretion) were slightly higher in patients with the spontaneous remission than in those with the cyclosporin-induced remission both in basal conditions and after stimulation with 1 mg of glucagon. In the patients with cyclosporin A-induced remission we found an improved basal C-peptide secretion and, even more, we detected a significant improvement in beta cell response to the glucagon stimulation. The analysis of the first-phase insulin secretory response (the insulin response to rapidly injected glucose during the intravenous glucose tolerance test) which has been shown to be impaired very early during the development of diabetes, has demonstrated the lack of its recovery both in the spontaneous and in cyclosporin A-induced remissions. The analysis of the molar insulin/C-peptide ratio has detected the impairments of this ratio which remains decreased both in spontaneous and cyclosporin-induced remissions.