Use of surgical techniques in the rat pancreas transplantation model

Pancreas transplantation is currently considered to be the most reliable and effective treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (also called type 1 diabetes). With the improvement of microsurgical techniques, pancreas transplantation in rats has been the major model for physiological and immunological experimental studies in the past 20 years. We investigated the surgical techniques of pancreas transplantation in rats by analysing the difference between cervical segmental pancreas transplantation and abdominal pancreaticoduodenal transplantation.

Two hundred and forty male adult Wistar rats weighing 200-300 g were used, 120 as donors and 120 as recipients. Sixty cervical segmental pancreas transplants and 60 abdominal pancreaticoduodenal transplants were carried out and vessel anastomoses were made with microsurgical techniques.

The time of donor pancreas harvesting in the cervical and abdominal groups was 31+/-6 and 37.6+/-3.8 min, respectively, and the lengths of recipient operations were 49.2+/-5.6 and 60.6+/-7.8 min. The time for donor operation was not significantly different (P>0.05), but the recipient operation time in the abdominal group was longer than that in the cervical group (P<0.05). In isograft transplantation without any preconditioning, 1-week survival rates were 93.6% and 86.2% in the cervical and abdominal groups, respectively, and were not significantly different (P>0.05).

Both pancreas transplantation methods are stable models for immunological and physiological studies in pancreas transplantation. Since each has its own advantages and disadvantages, the designer can choose the appropriate method according to the requirements of the study.