If you're battling diabetes and kidney disease, talk to your Sutter Health network doctor to find out if you qualify for a simultaneous pancreas-kidney (SPK) transplant. This technique—which places a healthy kidney and pancreas into your body at the same time—not only eliminates the need for dialysis, but also relieves diabetes sufferers’ daily burden of insulin shots and blood glucose monitoring. The new kidney filters poisons out of your body while the new pancreas makes insulin automatically, as your body needs it.
Since 1989, specialists at California Pacific Medical Center, a Sutter Health affiliate, have performed this advanced surgery with consistently excellent outcomes. CPMC is one of the two most active simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant programs in Northern California and achieves outstanding patient and organ survival rates, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.