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Objective Evaluate the change in participant emergency care knowledge and skill confidence after implementation of the WHO-International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Basic Emergency Care (BEC) course.Design Pretest/post-test quasi-experimental study.Setting Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, Ukraine.Participants Seventy-nine participants engaged in the course, of whom 50 (63.3%) completed all assessment tools. The course was open to healthcare providers of any level who assess and treat emergency conditions as part of their practice. The most common participant profession was resident physician (24%), followed by health educator (18%) and prehospital provider (14%).Interventions The 5-day WHO-ICRC BEC course.Primary and secondary outcome measures Change in pre-course and post-course knowledge and skill confidence assessments. Open-ended written feedback was collected upon course completion and analysed for common themes.Results Participant knowledge assessment scores improved from 19 (IQR 15–20) to 22 (IQR 19–23) on a 25-point scale (p

We previously reported a small-scale study on the efficacy of histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK) solution versus University of Wisconsin (UW) solution on pancreas preservation for islet isolation. In this large-scale, retrospective analysis ( n = 252), we extend our initial description of the impact of HTK on islet isolation outcomes and include pancreatic digestion efficacy, purification outcomes, and islet size distribution. Multivariable linear regression analysis, adjusted for donor age, sex, BMI, cold ischemia time, and enzyme, demonstrated similar results for the HTK group ( n = 95) and the UW group ( n = 157), including postpurification islet yields (HTK: 289,702 IEQ vs. UW: 283,036 IEQ; p = 0.76), percentage of digested pancreatic tissue (HTK: 66.9% vs. UW: 64.1%; p = 0.18), and islet loss from postdigestion to postpurification (HTK: 24,972 IEQ vs. UW: 39,551 IEQ; p = 0.38). Changes in islet size between the postdigestion and postpurification stages were comparable within each islet size category for HTK and UW ( p = 0.14–0.99). Tissue volume distribution across purification fractions and islet purity in the top fractions were similar between the groups; however, the HTK group had significantly higher islet purity in the middle fractions ( p = 0.003–0.008). Islet viability and stimulation indices were also similar between the HTK and the UW groups. In addition, we analyzed a small sample of patients transplanted either with HTK ( n = 7) or UW ( n = 8) preserved islets and found no significant differences in posttransplant HbA 1c , β-score, and frequency of insulin independence. This study demonstrates that HTK and UW solutions offer comparable pancreas preservation for islet transplantation. More in vivo islet outcome data are needed for a complete analysis of the effects of HTK on islet transplantation.