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SAMPLE 19 [医学类] The complications frequently accompanying diabetes, such as impairment of vision and of kidney function, are now thought to result from the lack of continuous control of blood glucose concentrations. The healthy pancreas, in response to increases in blood glucose concentration, releases small quantities of insulin throughout the day and thereby maintains the concentration within physiological limits . But the diabetic generally receives only one large dose daily. The diabetics blood glucose concentration can thus fluctuate greatly during the interval between doses, and it has been suggested that the complication result from the periods of high concentrations of blood glucose . Many investigators thus believe that restoration of normoglycemia might halt the progression of such complications and perhaps even reverse them. There are three primary techniques that have been investigated for restoration of normoglycemia. They are: transplantation of whole, healthy pancreases; transplantation of islets of Langerthan, that portion of the pancreas that actually secretes insulin, and implantation of artificial pancreases. There has, in fact been a great deal of success in the development of these techniques and each seems, on the whole, promising. Nonetheless, it will undoubtedly be many years before any one of them is accepted as a treatment for diabetes. To many people, the obvious approach would seem to be simply to transplant pancreases from cadavers in the same manner that kidneys and other organs are routinely transplanted. That was the rationale in 1966 when the first recorded pancreas was performed. Between 1960 and 1975, there were forty-six pancreas transplants in forty-five other patients in the United States and five other countries. But only one of these patients is still alive with a functioning graft and surgeons have found that the procedure is not simple as they once thought. | 
