US regulators have approved a first-of-a-kind "artificial pancreas that can help some diabetes patients manage their disease by constantly monitoring their blood sugar and delivering insulin as needed.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the device from Medtronic on Wednesday for patients with type 1 diabetes, the kind usually diagnosed during childhood.
Doctors said they had long awaited a device that could help patients around the clock.
"I can't wait to get my hands on it because I can think of a lot of our patients who need this," said the Cleveland Clinic's Dr Betul Hatipoglu.
"Now I have a helper who is going to help me to help them."
Type 1 diabetes patients have to manage their insulin through injections throughout the day or a drug pump that delivers it through a tube.
Their own pancreas does not make insulin, a hormone needed to turn food into energy.
They face increased risks of dangerously high blood-sugar levels, heart disease and many other health problems.
The new MiniMed 670G consists of a drug pump, a sensor that measures blood sugar and a tube that delivers the insulin.
The sensor measures sugar levels every five minutes, infusing or withholding insulin as needed.
Patients still have to manually increase insulin before meals.
Older insulin pumps simply deliver a baseline level of insulin, and patients must monitor their sugar levels and give themselves more insulin to keep their blood sugar from getting too high.
A big danger is having too much insulin in the body overnight, when blood-sugar levels naturally fall. People can go into comas, suffer seizures and even die.
The FDA said it approved the device based on a three-month study of more than 120 patients.
The pump is about the size of a deck of cards and can be worn on a belt or carried in a pocket.
The device "can provide people with Type 1 diabetes greater freedom to live their lives", said Dr Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's device centre.
While the device can be marketed only for type 1, doctors said it could eventually be used by those with type 2 diabetes, where the body gradually loses the ability to produce or use insulin.
Many of those patients are overweight or obese and face increased risk of heart attack, stroke and kidney failure.
