Preservation time dependent morphological changes in cold stored human donor pancreas

Pancreatic transplantation is being used to treat insulin-dependent diabetes. An intact structure of the graft is a prerequisite for preserved function and we therefore monitored the light microscopic and ultrastructural changes in 30 human donor pancreases stored in the cold in University of Wisconsin preservation solution. Twenty-three pancreases were stored for less than 24 h and 7 for more than 30 h. All glands stored longer than 30 h displayed cytoplasmic vacuolisation in a variable proportion of acinar cells. In addition, the glands stored over 40 h showed focal acinar necrosis. Endocrine tissue was only slightly affected, while duct cells showed no changes. It is concluded that cold preserved pancreases stored for less than 24 h are best for transplantation purposes and that acinar cells are more sensitive to ischaemic damage than endocrine and duct cells.