Department of Surgery

Division of Solid Organ Transplantation

Procedures

Pancreas Transplant Surgery

What is a Pancreas Transplant?

In a pancreas transplant, the patient’s diseased pancreas is replaced by a healthy pancreas from a donor. Usually, the healthy pancreas comes from someone who has recently died but did not have injury to the pancreas. This is called deceased donor transplantation. However, a segment of pancreas can be taken from a living organ donor who may be a family member or friend.

Get more information about living donor transplants.

Because type 1 diabetes is often associated with kidney failure, a person who needs a pancreas transplant may also need a kidney transplant. Therefore, there are three types of pancreas transplants:

According to the American Diabetes Association, a recent study shows that for people with at least one working kidney, survival rates of people who have a pancreas-only transplant are worse than the survival rates of people who use other treatments (such as insulin and diet) for their diabetes. Further, a pancreas transplanted along with a kidney is less likely to fail than a pancreas transplanted alone. That’s why the third type, the combination kidney-pancreas transplant, is actually the most common type of pancreas transplant, followed by the second. The first, a pancreas only transplant, is the least common of the three.