The objective of thi acquisition shall be to maintain a detailed data base of patients receiving pancreas of islet transplants throughout the world. This data base shall serve as a research tool for the medical community, detailing information on the donor pancreas, its processing, the technique of transplantation, the nature of immunoalteration of the tissue and/or immunosuppression of the recipient, and pre-and-post transplantation monitoring of the recipient for transplants preformed outside the United States. It shall also compile information the status of secondary complications of diabetes in patients receiving pancreas transplants world- wide (Secondary Complication Study - SCS). The program shall continue to coordinate activities with the United network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) data base (for collection of pancreas transplant data within the United States) and the International Islet Cell Transplant Registry (for collection of islet transplant data world-wide). A major component of this project shall be the analysis of all pancreas/islet transplant data bases to address questions regarding the utility of pancreas/islet transplants and the efficacy of pancreas transplant to prevent or ameliorate the secondary complications of diabetes. In recent years there has been an expansion of research involving whole an segmental pancreas transplantation for the treatment of diabetes mellitus as well as resumption of pilot experiments in islet cell transplantation. With numerous investigators using individually designed protocols, each involving relatively small numbers of patients, it will become difficult to compare results and arrive at widely applicable conclusions. A unified data base of human transplant activity will allow pooling of data for analysis. This data base will serve as a research tool for the activity, in addition, data from the registry will be published periodically by the Contractor. It is envisioned that when the techniques are refined for pancreas/islet cell transplantation and when the efficacy of these procedures to prevent or ameliorate the secondary complications of diabetes have been assessed, this data base shall cease to be in the research domain and any future development of the data base shall be under the domain of health statistics. The monitoring and evaluation of the Contractor's performance in accordance with these objectives shall be conducted through the regular and timely review of all technical reports required under the terms and conditions of subject contract.
