By Dr. Gerard Muraida,
March celebrations typically revolve around St. Patrick’s Day and not-so-healthful imbibing. However, March has also historically been a month of medical miracles that have helped save lives and improve quality of life for countless people over the last century.
One of the greatest medical breakthroughs in modern history was the discovery of insulin, which has saved millions of lives worldwide. Insulin was brought to light in 1921 by the Canadian research team of Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip, and John Macleod, transforming diabetes from a fatal disease to a manageable chronic condition.
Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old with diabetes, became the first person to receive insulin in March 1922. This was the first successful clinical use of the hormone. Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923 for their insulin discovery.
Early insulin was extracted from the pancreas of pigs or cows, then purified and standardized. Commercial production of insulin began in 1923. Different formulations of insulin, including a long-acting variety, were developed over the next three decades. During the 1970s, further purification of insulin was accomplished, and in the 1980s, recombinant human insulin was produced. This represented the first human protein to be used commercially for therapeutic use.
Over the last 30 years, insulin has been modified and copied into forms called analogs. This has provided health care professionals many insulin options in the management of diabetes. Current insulin treatment choices include rapid-acting, intermediate-acting, short-acting, pre-mixed, and concentrated insulin. Routes of administration have also expanded: syringes, pens, pumps and even inhaled insulin.
Another March medical milestone occurred in 1981, when the first successful heart-lung transplant was performed by Drs. Bruce Reitz and Norman Shumway on March 9 at Stanford Hospital. The recipient was Mary Gohlke, 45, who suffered from a chronic lung condition. She had become interested in the procedure after researching the success rate of experimental heart-lung transplants in rhesus monkeys.
Gohlke called Dr. Reitz and asked him how many heart-lung transplants he planned to do that year on humans. He said he would conduct 10. She reportedly told him she’d like to be the tenth so she “could see how the rest of them turn out.” The surgery was a success and changed transplantation medicine.
Most recently, in March 1989, the hepatitis C virus was identified. It was later isolated and finally identified as a cause of chronic liver disease and liver cancer. Scientists Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles M. Rice were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contributions that led to the discovery and ultimately to the development of specific diagnostic tests and therapies for Hep C disease, significantly reducing the worldwide burden of hepatitis C.
