Combined kidney-pancreas transplantation. Experience at the Urologic Clinic of the La Pitié Hospital]

The first attempts of pancreas transplantation were made in the middle of the 1960s and were further developed in the early 1980s with the coming of Cyclosporine. Various surgical techniques were used to carry out pancreas grafts; a total pancreatic transplantation with duodenovesical anastomosis was selected for 7 combined kidney-pancreas transplantations carried out during the past 18 months in our group. After a time lapse ranging from 18 months to 30 days, all patients were alive with functional kidney grafts. One patient only, who had lost his pancreatic graft, showed biological and histological signe of chronic rejection of his kidney graft. Five pancreas grafts are functioning, as is proved by the normal blood glucose and the normality of the markers. An immunosuppressant treatment was used in all similar cases, comprising, after an initial bolus of one gram of Methyl-Prednisolone, an initial four-drug treatment on 1/3 mg/kg/day of Prednisone, 7 mg/kg/day of Cyclosporine, 1 mg/kg/day of Imurel and, during the first fifteen days, the use of rabbit antithymocytic globulins. Ana analysis of the postoperative period revealed frequent local infectious complications, probably due to pancreatitis of the graft; however, in our experience so far, no pancreas graft was lost. The credit for this specific feature of our short series may be due to an exclusively subperitoneal approach for both the pancreas and the kidney transplantation, thus limiting the seriousness of postoperative infectious complications to a large extent.