Editorial: Insulitis in Diabetes – History and Significance

Insulitis and β-Cell Mass in the Natural History of Type 1 Diabetes

Descriptions of insulitis in human islets throughout the natural history of type 1 diabetes are limited. We determined insulitis frequency (the percent of islets displaying insulitis to total islets), infiltrating leukocyte subtypes, and β-cell and α-cell mass in pancreata recovered from organ donors with type 1 diabetes (n = 80), as well as from donors without diabetes, both with islet autoant...

Insulitis and b-Cell Mass in the Natural History of Type 1 Diabetes

Descriptions of insulitis in human islets throughout the natural history of type 1 diabetes are limited. We determined insulitis frequency (the percent of islets displaying insulitis to total islets), infiltrating leukocyte subtypes, and b-cell and a-cell mass in pancreata recovered from organ donors with type 1 diabetes (n = 80), as well as from donors without diabetes, both with islet autoant...

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Insulitis in Human Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an auto-immune disease characterized by the selective destruction of the insulin secreting beta cells in the pancreas during an inflammatory phase known as insulitis. Patients with T1D are typically dependent on the administration of externally provided insulin in order to manage blood glucose levels. Whilst technological developments have significantly improved both th...

Functional Imaging of Insulitis in Type 1 Diabetes

Insulitis in Type 1 Diabetes: A Sticky Problem

Lymphocytic infiltration in the islets of Langerhans is generally recognized as the defining lesion in young patients with recent-onset type 1A diabetes. In a landmark article published in Diabetes in 1965, Gepts (1) described insulitis in 70% of cases with acute diabetes and found that the lesion only affected islets with residual -cells in pancreatic organs that had otherwise lost most of the...