Islet transplantation improves vascular diabetic complications in patients with diabetes who underwent kidney transplantation: a comparison between kidney-pancreas and kidney-alone transplantation1

Background. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of islet transplantation on patient survival and diabetic vascular complications. Methods. Thirty-seven type 1 uremic diabetic kidney transplant patients underwent islet transplantation (KI group). Uremic type 1 diabetic kidney-pancreas (KP group, n=162), kidney-alone (KD group, n=42) transplant patients, and uremic type 1 diabetic patients still on hemodialysis (HD+DM group, n=196) constituted the control groups for survival and endothelial morphology. Results. Patient survival was similar in the KI and KP groups and higher than in the HD+DM group (P