Pancreatic Islet Transplantation: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Pancreatic islet transplantation represents an effective therapy with lower morbidity for patients carriers of type 1 diabetes compared to whole pancreas transplantation. Although complete insulin independence is usually not achieved it allows control of glycemia balance reducing the risk of severe hypoglycaemia events and impaired awareness of hypoglycaemia. Recent trials had demonstrated islet transplantation to be more effective than current medical treatment and improvements in outcomes also have been reported after the introduction or modification of current immunosuppressive protocols. The principal disadvantage of this technique is the shortage of pancreatic islets/pancreas , needing several donors for 1 recipient, and the inflammation which affected graft viability. These limitations have led researchers to develop alternative way to assure higher effectiveness such as the development of new cells sources like xenogenic lines (porcine), stem cell-derived β cells or alternative transplantation sites or moreover peculiar techniques to increase cells viability after graft (encapsulation).