Normotensive microalbuminuric type 1 patients, although strictly comparable with normoalbuminuric patients for casual BP and HR, have an increased ABP and HR, especially during the night. This difference might reflect dysautonomia. Ambulatory measurement of BP and HR is more appropriate than casual measurements in hemodynamic studies of incipient diabetic nephropathies and could be proposed as an interesting tool for an early prediction of diabetic nephropathy.

Over the period of study, 260 pancreata were offered, from a total of 1,304 cadaveric donors in the four allocation regions (20%). Fifty-two patients were on the waiting list at any time during this 2-year period. The percentage of organs offered varied in the range of 0.5% to 42%, depending on region of origin, with a correlation with number of patients on the waiting list in each region. Of these, 104 (40%) were accepted for processing. Ninety-two pancreata were actually processed, resulting in 42 islet preparations being transplanted. The number of international equivalents of transplanted preparations was 378,500+/-16,000 versus 165,400+/-15,400 (P<0.0001) for nontransplanted preparations. Total cold ischemia time was 6+/-0.3 hr for transplanted preparations versus 6.7+/-0.4 hr for nontransplanted preparations (not significant). CONCLUSIONS.: A high rate of pancreas offers, successful isolation, and islet transplantation can be achieved in multicenter networks such as GRAGIL. Such an approach can expand both the donor pool and the recipient population.

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This study demonstrates the interest and the feasibility of a multicentre collaboration in human islet transplantation.