Pancreatectomy and Auto-Islet Transplant

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In 1977, surgeons at the University of Minnesota performed the world's first auto islet transplant after the patient received a total pancreatectomy.  Since that time, over 138 pancreatectomy and auto-islet transplants have been performed here, 16 of these procedures have been performed on children under the age of 18.  Physicians from the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview (formerly called Fairview University Medical Center), have performed about 2/3 of all pancreatectomy and auto islet transplants in the world. 

In patients with small-duct chronic pancreatitis, relief of pain can usually be achieved only by total pancreatectomy (removal of their pancreas).  People with chronic debilitating pancreatitis or inflammation of the pancreas may want to consider having a pancreatectomy and auto islet transplant.  During this type of surgery, a patient's whole pancreas is removed.  Without a pancreas, a person becomes diabetic and needs to take insulin shots.  However, to help minimize the need for insulin shots, the patient's own islets are isolated from the pancreas and are put back into the patient through a catheter into the portal vein in the liver.  The islets lodge in the liver or spleen and start producing insulin for the patient.  With this type of procedure, the patient does not need to take immunosuppressive medications to prevent rejection of the islets by their body because the islets that are infused originally came from their own pancreas.

The probability of islet success is highest in those individuals who have had no previous direct surgery on the body and tail of the pancreas (such as a Puestow or Whipple procedure).  For relief from the debilitating pain of chronic pancreatitis, patients have to accept the possibility of diabetes.  If diabetes is prevented, it is a bonus.