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| Pancreas transplantation | |
|---|---|
 Pancreas transplant ex-situ prepared with reconstruction of arteries and lengthening of the portal vein | |
| ICD-9-CM | 52.8 |
| MeSH | D016035 |
| MedlinePlus | 003007 |
A pancreas transplant is an organ transplant that involves implanting a healthy pancreas (one that can produce insulin) into a person who usually has diabetes.
Because the pancreas is a vital organ, performing functions necessary in the digestion process, the recipient's native pancreas is left in place, and the donated pancreas is attached in a different location. In the event of rejection of the new pancreas, which would quickly cause life-threatening diabetes, there would be a significant chance the recipient would not survive very well for long without the native pancreas, however dysfunctional, still in place. The healthy pancreas comes from a donor who has just died or it may be a partial pancreas from a living donor. [1] At present, pancreas transplants are usually performed in persons with insulin-dependent diabetes, who can develop severe complications. Patients with the most common, and deadliest, form of pancreatic cancer (pancreatic adenomas, which are usually malignant, with a poor prognosis and high risk for metastasis, as opposed to more treatable pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors or pancreatic insulinomas) are usually not eligible for valuable pancreatic transplantations, since the condition usually has a very high mortality rate and the disease, which is usually highly malignant and detected too late to treat, could and probably would soon return. Better surgical method can be chosen to minimize the surgical complications with enteric or bladder drainage. Advancement in immunosuppression has improved quality of life after transplantation.
In most cases, pancreas transplantation is performed on people with type 1 diabetes with end-stage renal disease, brittle diabetes, and hypoglycaemic unawareness. Other type 2 diabetics can benefit from a pancreas transplant. The indications for a type 2 diabetic are a BMI < 30 kg/m2 and low overall insulin requirement (< 1 U/kg/day). The majority of pancreas transplantations (> 90%) are simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantations. [2]
Complications immediately after surgery include clotting of the arteries or veins of the new pancreas (thrombosis), inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), infection, bleeding [3] and rejection. Rejection may occur immediately or at any time during the patient's life. This is because the transplanted pancreas comes from another organism, thus the recipient's immune system will consider it as an aggression and try to combat it. Organ rejection is a serious condition and ought to be treated immediately. In order to prevent it, patients must take a regimen of immunosuppressive drugs. Drugs are taken in combination consisting normally of ciclosporin, azathioprine and corticosteroids. But as episodes of rejection may reoccur throughout a patient's life, the exact choices and dosages of immunosuppressants may have to be modified over time. Sometimes tacrolimus is given instead of ciclosporin and mycophenolate mofetil instead of azathioprine.
There are four main types of pancreas transplantation:
The prognosis after pancreas transplantation is very good. Over the recent years, long-term success has improved and risks have decreased. One year after transplantation more than 95% of all patients are still alive and 80–85% of all pancreases are still functional. After transplantation patients need lifelong immunosuppression. Immunosuppression increases the risk for a number of different kinds of infection [5] and cancer.
It is unclear if steroids, which are often used as immunosuppressant, can be replaced with something else. [6]
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As described by a pioneer in the field, D.E. Sutherland, whole pancreas transplantation began as a part of multi-organ transplants, in the mid-to-late 1960s, at the University of Minnesota:
The first attempt to cure type 1 diabetes by pancreas transplantation was done at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, on December 17, 1966… [This] opened the door to a period, between the mid 70's to mid 80's where only segmental pancreatic grafts were used... In the late 70's-early 80's, three major events… boosted the development of pancreas transplantation… [At] the Spitzingsee meetings, participants had the idea to renew the urinary drainage technique of the exocrine secretion of the pancreatic graft with segmental graft and eventually with whole pancreaticoduodenal transplant. That was clinically achieved during the mid 80's and remained the mainstay technique during the next decade. In parallel, the Swedish group developed the whole pancreas transplantation technique with enteric diversion. It was the onset of the whole pancreas reign. The enthusiasm for the technique was rather moderated in its early phase due to the rapid development of liver transplantation and the need for sharing vascular structures between both organs, liver and pancreas. During the modern era of immunosuppression, the whole pancreas transplantation technique with enteric diversion became the gold standard… [7]
The first pancreas transplantation, performed in a multi-organ transplant with kidney and duodenum, was into a 28-year-old woman; her death three month post-surgery did not obscure the apparent success of the pancreatic replacement. [8] It was performed in 1966 by the team of W.D. Kelly, R.C. Lillehei, F.K. Merkel, Y. Idezuki, F.C. Goetz and coworkers at the University Hospitals, University of Minnesota, three years after the first kidney transplantation. [9] [ non-primary source needed ] The first living-related partial pancreas transplantation was done in 1979.[ clarification needed ][ according to whom? ][ citation needed ]
In the successive 1980s period, there was significant improvements in immunosuppressive drugs, surgical techniques, and the preservation of organs. The prognosis is very good with 95% of patients still alive after one year post-surgery and 80-85% of all pancreases still functional. [5]
In 2010 Ugo Boggi [10] [ circular reference ] practices state-of-the-art robotic surgery having performed the first world robotic pancreas transplant and the first world robotic distal selective spleno-renal shunt for the treatment of severe portal hypertension. [11]
Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organs may be transported from a donor site to another location. Organs and/or tissues that are transplanted within the same person's body are called autografts. Transplants that are recently performed between two subjects of the same species are called allografts. Allografts can either be from a living or cadaveric source.
A head transplant is an experimental surgical operation involving the grafting of one organism's head onto the body of another. In many experiments, the recipient's head has not been removed, but in others it has been. Experimentation in animals began in the early 1900s. As of 2023, no lasting successes have been achieved.
Immunosuppression is a reduction of the activation or efficacy of the immune system. Some portions of the immune system itself have immunosuppressive effects on other parts of the immune system, and immunosuppression may occur as an adverse reaction to treatment of other conditions.
The pancreatic islets or islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine (hormone-producing) cells, discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans. The pancreatic islets constitute 1–2% of the pancreas volume and receive 10–15% of its blood flow. The pancreatic islets are arranged in density routes throughout the human pancreas, and are important in the metabolism of glucose.
Immunosuppressive drugs, also known as immunosuppressive agents, immunosuppressants and antirejection medications, are drugs that inhibit or prevent the activity of the immune system.
Liver transplantation or hepatic transplantation is the replacement of a diseased liver with the healthy liver from another person (allograft). Liver transplantation is a treatment option for end-stage liver disease and acute liver failure, although availability of donor organs is a major limitation. The most common technique is orthotopic transplantation, in which the native liver is removed and replaced by the donor organ in the same anatomic position as the original liver. The surgical procedure is complex, requiring careful harvest of the donor organ and meticulous implantation into the recipient. Liver transplantation is highly regulated, and only performed at designated transplant medical centers by highly trained transplant physicians and supporting medical team. The duration of the surgery ranges from 4 to 18 hours depending on outcome. Favorable outcomes require careful screening for eligible recipient, as well as a well-calibrated live or cadaveric donor match.
Transplant rejection occurs when transplanted tissue is rejected by the recipient's immune system, which destroys the transplanted tissue. Transplant rejection can be lessened by determining the molecular similitude between donor and recipient and by use of immunosuppressant drugs after transplant.
Allotransplant is the transplantation of cells, tissues, or organs to a recipient from a genetically non-identical donor of the same species. The transplant is called an allograft, allogeneic transplant, or homograft. Most human tissue and organ transplants are allografts.
Kidney transplant or renal transplant is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage kidney disease (ESRD). Kidney transplant is typically classified as deceased-donor or living-donor transplantation depending on the source of the donor organ. Living-donor kidney transplants are further characterized as genetically related (living-related) or non-related (living-unrelated) transplants, depending on whether a biological relationship exists between the donor and recipient.
Lung transplantation, or pulmonary transplantation, is a surgical procedure in which one or both lungs are replaced by lungs from a donor. Donor lungs can be retrieved from a living or deceased donor. A living donor can only donate one lung lobe. With some lung diseases, a recipient may only need to receive a single lung. With other lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis, it is imperative that a recipient receive two lungs. While lung transplants carry certain associated risks, they can also extend life expectancy and enhance the quality of life for those with end stage pulmonary disease.
The BK virus, also known as Human polyomavirus 1, is a member of the polyomavirus family. Past infection with the BK virus is widespread, but significant consequences of infection are uncommon, with the exception of the immunocompromised and the immunosuppressed. BK virus is an abbreviation of the name of the first patient, from whom the virus was isolated in 1971.
The Edmonton protocol is a method of implantation of pancreatic islets for the treatment of type 1 diabetes mellitus, specifically "brittle" type 1 diabetics prone to hypoglycemic unawareness. The protocol is named for the islet transplantation group at the University of Alberta in the Canadian city of Edmonton, where the protocol was first devised in the late 1990s, and published in The New England Journal of Medicine in July 2000.
Islet transplantation is the transplantation of isolated islets from a donor pancreas into another person. It is a treatment for type 1 diabetes. Once transplanted, the islets begin to produce insulin, actively regulating the level of glucose in the blood.
Insulitis is an inflammation of the islets of Langerhans, a collection of endocrine tissue located in the pancreas that helps regulate glucose levels, and is classified by specific targeting of immune cell infiltration in the islets of Langerhans. This immune cell infiltration can result in the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells of the islets, which plays a major role in the pathogenesis, the disease development, of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Insulitis is present in 19% of individuals with type 1 diabetes and 28% of individuals with type 2 diabetes. It is known that genetic and environmental factors contribute to insulitis initiation, however, the exact process that causes it is unknown. Insulitis is often studied using the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse model of type 1 diabetes. The chemokine family of proteins may play a key role in promoting leukocytic infiltration into the pancreas prior to pancreatic beta-cell destruction.
Transplantable organs and tissues may refer to both organs and tissues that are relatively often transplanted, as well as organs and tissues which are relatively seldom transplanted. In addition to this it may also refer to possible-transplants which are still in the experimental stage.
A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. As of 2018, the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart, with or without both lungs, from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the patient. The patient's own heart is either removed and replaced with the donor heart or, much less commonly, the recipient's diseased heart is left in place to support the donor heart.
Rainer W.G. Gruessner is a German-born American general surgeon and transplant surgeon, most noted as a surgical pioneer for his clinical and research innovations. Gruessner was the first transplant surgeon to perform all types of abdominal transplants from living donors.
Intestine transplantation is the surgical replacement of the small intestine for chronic and acute cases of intestinal failure. While intestinal failure can oftentimes be treated with alternative therapies such as parenteral nutrition (PN), complications such as PN-associated liver disease and short bowel syndrome may make transplantation the only viable option. One of the rarest type of organ transplantation performed, intestine transplantation is becoming increasingly prevalent as a therapeutic option due to improvements in immunosuppressive regimens, surgical technique, PN, and the clinical management of pre and post-transplant patients.
Richard C. Lillehei was an American transplant surgeon best remembered for the world's first successful simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant in 1966 and the first known human intestinal transplantation. He came from a renowned medical family in Minneapolis; his father was a dentist and his brothers were cardiologist James Lillehei and cardiothoracic surgeon C. Walton Lillehei. The Lillehei Surgical Society is named in honour of the three brothers.
Gaetano Ciancio is an Italian American surgeon at the University of Miami who specializes in kidney transplant. He is the chief medical and academic officer of the Miami Transplant Institute and the director of its Kidney & Kidney-Pancreas Programs. His most significant contributions to medicine are related to surgically treating kidney cancer once it has spread to the inferior vena cava and in optimizing the immunosuppression protocol after kidney transplant.
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