The number of pancreas transplants performed in the United States stabilized over the last 3 years after nearly a decade of steady decline. Numbers of new additions to the list also stabilized during the same period. Notably, the persistent decline in pancreas after kidney transplants also seems to have abated, at least for now. The first full year of data after implementation of the new pancreas allocation system revealed no change in the distribution of organs between simultaneous pancreas-kidney (SPK) transplant and pancreas transplant alone. The percentage of kidneys used in SPK transplants was also unchanged. While a uniform definition of pancreas graft failure was approved in June 2015, it is awaiting implementation. Meanwhile, SRTR will refrain from publishing pancreas graft failure data in the program-specific reports. Therefore, it is difficult to track trends in outcomes after pancreas transplant over the past 2 years. New initiatives by the OPTN/UNOS Pancreas Transplantation Committee include facilitated pancreas allocation and broadened allocation of pancreata across compatible ABO blood types to increase organ utilization.
Keywords: Pancreas transplant; pancreas after kidney transplant; pancreas transplant alone; simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant.
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