Does Islet Transplantation Improve Renal Allograft Function?
There has been a recent proliferation in the number of medical centers performing islet cell transplantation in patients with type 1 diabetes. This came about after the Edmonton group (Shapiro et al.) reported their initial results in the NEJM in 2000. Islet transplantation has also been used in kidney transplant recipients. Fiorina et al. review long-term renal function outcomes in a cohort of 36 patients receiving islet after kidney transplantation from an experienced European islet transplant center. The article compares a cohort of 24 patients who have evidence of ongoing islet graft function measured by detectable C-peptide levels greater than 0.5 ng/ml versus a second group with undetectable islet graft C-peptide function. The results show that there is a statistically significant improvement in renal allograft survival at 1, 4, and 7 years in the patients with detectable islet function. Although the glomerular filtration rate was not different between the two groups, patients wh
