Predicting the outcome of islet isolation in large mammals

Excerpt

To the Editor: Human islet isolation remains a major and frustrating challenge for the development of pancreatic islet allotransplantation. In their recent article, Andrades et al. [1] studied islet isolation from consecutive pancreases in a large cohort of rhesus macaques and confirmed the heterogeneous outcome of islet isolation in large non-syngeneic mammals. In this retrospective study, the authors pointed out several technical criteria that could improve islet yield and quality; in particular, better preservation and isolation management. However, they could not identify any clear predictive donor criterion associated with the islet isolation results. In humans, BMI was found to be the most consistent variable in several large retrospective studies [2]. Although BMI is often used for selecting donors before pancreas retrieval [3], it has only been marginally correlated with the outcome of islet isolation and has little independent predictive value. …