What is the experience of a multidisciplinary out-clinic aimed to select of patients for beta-cell replacement transplantation?
Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet is the national competence center for whole organ transplantation in Norway, serving the whole country. Some 20-25 patients with brittle type 1 diabetes mellitus undergo beta cell replacement transplantation every year, either by transplantation of a vascularized pancreas or by transplantation of insulin-producing islets of Langerhans. Patients are referred from the different regions of Norway for eligibility. Prior to pre-transplant work-up and wait listing they are seen and evaluated over 2 days at a multidisciplinary out-clinic which involves transplant nephrologists, an endocrinologist, transplant surgeons and psychiatrists. The purpose is to assess the patient’s options for conservative treatment vs. transplantation, and also to give the patient updated information of the transplant procedures in question.
At present some 100 patients have been seen, and many of them have never been wait listed.
This project aims to determine the reasons for being vs. not being wait listed, with special focus on the patient’s personal preferences, co-morbidities, and alternative therapeutic options that have not yet been explored.
This work was terminated in 2020, and is accepted for publication in 2021.
News from 2021:
The work was published.
Publications 2021:
Nordheim E, Lindahl JP, Carlsen RK, Aasberg A, Birkeland KI, Horneland R, Boye B, Scholz H, Jenssen TG. Patient selection for islet or solid organ pancreas transplantation: experiences from a multidisciplinary outpatient-clinic approach. Endocr Connect 2021; 10:230-239.
Primary Investigator: Trond Jenssen, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine