Pancreas transplantation in the treatment of diabetes mellitus type 1: Modern aspects

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a significant social problem. In the Russian Federation, the prevalence of diabetes type 1 is 340.000 people, 21% of them having diabetic nephropathy, as well as other secondary complications leading to disability and high mortality. There are several options for diabetic patients with chronic kidney disease dialysis: kidney transplantation with insulin therapy, simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant or islet transplant. Good long-term results could be obtained by the whole pancreas and kidney combined transplantation through maximum metabolism recovery comparing to other replacement therapy options. The recipientselection with special attention to the cardiovascular system evaluation is essential to successful transplantation. The proper pancreatic graft assessment needs a wide range of criteria to be analyzed. Integral scores can simplify and systematize the assessment. The choice of preservation technique is important to pancreatic graft ischemia-reperfusion injury minimization. Despite the progress in graft preservation methods, cold storage using University of Wisconsin (UW) solution remains to be the gold standard. The evolution of surgical technique has resulted in utilizing the most physiologic variations of exocrine drainage and venous outflow of the pancreas, so-called portoenteric drainages, which were designed to improve remote metabolic effects and to reduce complications probability.