Pancreas Transplant

Your pancreas is an organ about the length of your hand located behind the lower part of your stomach and intestines and just in front of the spine. One of its main jobs is to make insulin, a hormone that regulates the levels of glucose (sugar) in your body.

When your pancreas no longer works properly, your doctor may recommend pancreas transplantation. This procedure is used to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes that has not been successfully controlled with medical treatment and is causing complications such as damage to your kidneys, nerves, and eyes or frequent dangerous low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia).

Before you can be listed for pancreas transplantation, you will be evaluated to assess whether pancreas transplant is a good option for you. The evaluation includes:

• Education about the benefits, options, and risks of pancreas transplantation and a meeting with our transplant physicians to answer your questions
• Review of your medical history
• Physical examination
• Psychosocial evaluation with a transplant social worker to make sure you’ll have the support you need during and after the transplant process
• Meeting with our financial counselor to make sure you have adequate coverage for your transplant and post-transplant expenses
• Blood tests for tissue typing and antibody screening and to check the function of your heart, liver, and immune system, and screen for certain diseases
• Heart tests
• Chest X-ray and other imaging studies
• Dental exam
• Cancer screenings
• Gynecological exam for women
• Nutrition evaluation

Additional testing may be needed, depending on your health and other conditions you’re living with.

After a successful evaluation, you will be placed on the transplant waiting list and you’ll be notified that you’re on the list. During your time on the waitlist, it’s important to keep yourself as healthy as possible.

During the surgery, the surgeon places the donor pancreas in the right side of your abdomen and connects it to other organs. A piece of the small intestine comes attached to pancreas from the deceased organ donor. This is sewn to your small intestine so digestive enzymes from your new pancreas can drain into your small intestine, helping with digestion.

The surgeon does not remove your original pancreas. It remains in place to help with digestion. After the transplant, your new pancreas makes insulin, so you no longer need to take insulin.

For people with kidney failure caused by diabetes, a combined kidney-pancreas transplant may be an option. During the operation, surgeons simultaneously transplant a kidney and a pancreas into the patient.

Following combined kidney and pancreas transplantation, the kidney will filter waste products from your blood so that you no longer need dialysis. The transplanted pancreas will produce insulin to control the diabetes and protect the new kidney, helping it to work better and last longer.