Successful procurement of 50 pancreatic grafts using a simple and fast technique

The procurement of a pancreatic graft must be as meticulous as possible and with minimum handling and blood loss so that the transplant procedure can be carried out with no complications. We describe the technique we are using in our institution which, contrary to others, requires that most of the dissection for donor pancreatectomy be done after crossclamping and intravascular flushing of the abdominal organs. We have performed 50 consecutive procurements of pancreatic grafts using this technique. All grafts were successfully transplanted with no evidence of post-transplant primary non-function or graft pancreatitis. We believe that this technique is faster and minimises handling of the pancreas and blood loss resulting in excellent post-transplant metabolic function of the pancreatic graft.