[Spontaneous and experimental models of human juvenile diabetes mellitus]

The author describes his findings pertaining to spontaneous diabetes mellitus in BB rats and the method and results in juvenile alloxan diabetes in neonatal and adolescent Wistar rats of his own inbreeding F8-10. The author presents also the results of attempts to treat juvenile alloxan diabetes in rats by intrafamilial renal-subscapular allotransplants of 2-5 neonatal collagenase nondigested pancreases. Six of eleven BB females developed latent or manifest insulin dependent diabetes mellitus during the third to fourth month of life. An intraperitoneal injection of alloxan to 2-5-day-old rats causes, after two months of prediabetes, latent or manifest disease, in particular in males. In one-two-month adolescent fasting F6--10 inbred rats (Wistar strain) intravenous injection of 50 mg/kg alloxan causes diabetes mellitus with hyperglycaemia (20-60 mmol/l), glycosuria, polyuria, arrested growth, development of cataract and early death due to pulmonary or intestinal infection. The author tries to prevent these sequelae and complications by insulin therapy or intrafamilial allotransplantations of 2-5 neonatal, collagenase nondigested pancreases beneath the renal capsule, using two-three--week immunosuppression with Cyclosporin A combined with Azathioprine. The author proves permanent cure, histologically and functionally, by repeated allotransplantation which, however, due to the intense thymolymphatic immunological barrier in adolescent rats is less frequent than cure repeatedly achieved by the author in adult diabetic rats.