High Illicit Drug Abuse and Suicide in Organ Donors With Type 1 Diabetes

Organ donors with type 1 diabetes represent a unique population for research. Through a combination of immunological, metabolic, and physiological analyses, researchers utilizing such tissues seek to understand the etiopathogenic events that result in this disorder. The Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes (nPOD) program collects, processes, and distributes pancreata and disease-relevant tissues to investigators throughout the world for this purpose (1). Information is also available, through medical records of organ donors, related to causes of death and psychological factors, including drug use and suicide, that impact life with type 1 diabetes. We reviewed the terminal hospitalization records for the first 100 organ donors with type 1 diabetes in the nPOD database, noting cause, circumstance, and mechanism of death; laboratory results; and history of illicit drug use. Donors were 45% female and 79% Caucasian. Mean age at time of death was 28 years (range 4–61) with mean disease duration of 16 years (range 0.25–52). Causes of death, based on death certificate, are presented …