Hereditary pancreatitis is most concerning, as it affects young children who then have a higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer in later life.
Aside from genetic risk factors, pancreatitis can be triggered by causes including alcohol consumption, gallstones, infection, obesity, certain medications, injuries to the pancreas and pancreatic structural abnormalities.
Together with our Group charity Kidney Transplant & Diabetes Research Australia, we are committed to finding new ways to treat pancreatitis, enhance organ transplantation and ultimately eliminate this disease from our community.
Chelsea Holloway shares her incredible journey with pancreatitis
Pancreatitis Support
Building a Biospherix Chamber in Adelaide to enable faster and safer pancreatic islet transplantation, to avoid the need for a patient’s pancreas to fly interstate during the procedure to have its islet cells harvested.
Researcher
Driven by Professor Toby Coates, this facility will set up Adelaide as a centre of excellence in the southern hemisphere for the treatment of debilitating pancreatitis.
Helping to provide highly innovative Total Pancreatectomy with Islet Auto Transplantation (TP-IAT) procedures in Adelaide as the only program of its kind available for people with hereditary pancreatitis.
Researcher
Professor Toby Coates says the procedure involves removing the pancreas to manage severe chronic pain and avoid future risk of cancer, followed by infusing the patient’s islet cells into the liver to create insulin and prevent diabetes.
Investigating the prevalence of hereditary pancreatitis and its gene profile in order to better understand disease risk, severity and progression in patients and their family members.
Researcher
Honours student Denghao Wu is working to better understand the genetic profile of hereditary pancreatitis, which is caused by a gene mutation resulting in inflammation of the pancreas and poor quality of life from a young age.
