A review of advances in pancreatic tissue engineering

Background: A common treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes in which pancreatic beta cells are destroyed by their own immune system attack, is insulin injection. Because this treatment is not able to maintain complete glucose homeostasis compared to the function of endogenous insulin secreted by the pancreas; in the field of pancreatic tissue engineering, various treatment strategies have been proposed, which this article introduces and reviews. Methods: The present article is a review study that was performed using the search of keywords including Tissue engineering, Pancreas, Type 1 Diabetes, Extracellular Matrix, and Three-dimensional Bioprinting in available databases of PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and Scopus to search for relevant articles and books related to the subject. Results: A total of 48 articles and two books obtained from the search, which were in line with the objectives of the present study, were selected and the analysis of their results was presented in fluent and practical language. Conclusion: Although pancreatic islet transplantation has been introduced as an ideal treatment for type 1 diabetes, its effectiveness is limited due to the lack of islets needed for transplantation, immune rejection, and the use of long-term immunosuppressive drugs. As a result, new approaches to pancreatic tissue engineering, including scaffolding techniques, Three-dimensional bioprinting, and insulin-secreting organoids, have been proposed to address these challenges.