Chemical Oxygenation of Pancreatic Tissue Prior to Islet Isolation and Transplantation

Islet transplantation has been established as a promising treatment for patients suffering from life-threatening hypoglycemic episodes (Shapiro et al., 2000, Shapiro et al., 2006). Apart from the achievement of insulin independence, islet transplantation has been shown to improve metabolic control (Meyer et al., 1998), renal and cardiovascular function (Fiorina et al., 2003a, Fiorina et al., 2003b) and to ameliorate the progression of diabetic complications such as retinopathy (Thompson et al., 2008, Warnock et al., 2008). With regard to long-term posttransplant outcome islet transplantation alone has now reached equivalent function rates when compared to pancreas transplantation alone (Bellin et al., 2008, Vantyghem et al., 2009, Maffi et al., 2011). However, the broad application of this treatment on diabetic patients is limited with respect to the number of suitable islet preparations required to induce long-term insulin independence in recipients of islet allografts (Guignard et al., 2004, Kempf et al., 2005).