Noninvasive evaluation of donor and native pancreases following simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation using positron emission tomography/computed tomography.

J Diabetes Investig · 2023

Last updated 2026-05-28

Researchers used a special imaging scan to evaluate the function of the pancreas in a patient who received a combined kidney and pancreas transplant. The scan showed clear differences in activity between the donated pancreas and the patient’s original pancreas, with higher activity measured in the donated organ at 1 and 2 hours after the imaging agent was given.

AI summary of the abstract below.

Journal	J Diabetes Investig, 2023
Citations	6
Relative citation ratio	1.20
NIH percentile	57
Molecules	—
Conditions studied	Type 2 Diabetes, Chronic Kidney Disease

Abstract

It is crucial to develop practical and noninvasive methods to assess the functional beta-cell mass in a donor pancreas, in which monitoring and precise evaluation is challenging. A patient with type 1 diabetes underwent noninvasive imaging following simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplantation with positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) using an exendin-based probe, [ F]FB(ePEG12)12-exendin-4. Following transplantation, PET imaging with [ F]FB(ePEG12)12-exendin-4 revealed simultaneous and distinct accumulations in the donor and native pancreases. The pancreases were outlined at a reasonable distance from the surrounding organs using [ F]FB(ePEG12)12-exendin-4 whole-body maximum intensity projection and axial PET images. At 1 and 2 h after [ F]FB(ePEG12)12-exendin-4 administration, the mean standardized uptake values were 2.96 and 3.08, respectively, in the donor pancreas and 1.97 and 2.25, respectively, in the native pancreas. [ F]FB(ePEG12)12-exendin-4 positron emission tomography imaging allowed repeatable and quantitative assessment of beta-cell mass following simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplantation.

Verbatim abstract via PubMed 37377043 ↗