The Region - News from Sept. 29, 1986

In the first trial studies of their kind in the United States, diabetes specialists from the University of California, Irvine, and Johns Hopkins University have been given approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to surgically implant insulin pumps, UCI officials said. The battery-powered pumps, which can be programmed with a remote-controlled device to emit varying amounts of insulin to control blood sugar, will be implanted in 40 diabetics, said Carol Holleman, nurse practitioner with UCI’s diabetes program. Twenty of the pumps are to be implanted by UCI doctors; the other 20 by Johns Hopkins physicians. The external pump, usually strapped to the waist, feeds insulin into the body through a tube attached to a needle inserted into the skin.