Pancreatic islet transplantation stands to enable patients with type 1 diabetes to become insulin-independent. However, the number of islets required to achieve insulin independence is not yet well-defined and depends on the transplantation approach. Here, we contextualize a ‘rule of thumb’ estimate of the islet quantities required for transplantation, and discuss the estimate’s practical implications.
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The authors would like to thank L. Winkel for her feedback on early iterations of this article.
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G.T. receives current and prior funding from Novo Nordisk. Personal financial interests include equity/stock (Lyndra Therapeutics, Suono Bio, Vivtex, Celero Systems, Syntis Bio), board of directors member and/or consultant (Lyndra Therapeutics, Novo Nordisk, Suono Bio, Vivtex, Celero Systems, Syntis Bio) and royalties (past and potentially in the future) from licensed and/or optioned intellectual property (Lyndra Therapeutics, Novo Nordisk, Suono Bio, Vivtex, Celero Systems, Syntis Bio, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Mass General Brigham Innovation). Complete details of all relationships for profit and not-for-profit for G.T. can be found in the Supplementary information. M.S. is an employee of Novo Nordisk. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
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Eleventh Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry: https://citregistry.org/
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Owyang, S., Jastrzebska-Perfect, P., Scott, M. et al. Re-considering quantity requirements in islet transplantation. Nat Rev Bioeng 1, 382–384 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-023-00045-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-023-00045-5
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