: To systematically review the literature on quality of life (QOL) after islet transplantation following total pancreatectomy in chronic pancreatitis (CP). Total pancreatectomy and islet auto-transplantation (TPIAT) aims to relieve pain while preserving β-cell function in CP patients. A systematic search of Medline, PubMed, EMBASE was performed according to PRISMA framework to identify studies reporting on QOL after TPIAT for CP. Random effects meta-analyses were performed to pool results on change in physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) QOL scores. Twenty-nine studies performed between 2011-2025 with a total of 4075 patients were included of which 24.8% were paediatric patients. 19 studies used the RAND SF36 QOL instrument, the most used instrument. The QOL surveys were performed from 1 month to more than 10 years post-TPIAT. Response rates varied from 14%-100%. PCS scores were significantly higher at 1-year post-TPIAT (pooled estimate 10.36, 95% CI 7.33 to 13.4, p = <0.001) and at longest follow up (pooled estimate 16.07, 95% CI 5.80 to 26.34, p = 0.002). MCS scores were also significantly higher at 1-year post-TPIAT (pooled estimate 5.54, 95% CI 3.30 to 7.78, p = <0.001) and at longest follow up (pooled estimate 13.26, 95% CI 3.67 to 22.85, p = 0.007). Improvements in QOL appear to persist beyond 10 years. TPIAT offers both short-term and long-term improvements in physical and mental components of QOL. However, development of TPIAT specific QOL instrument is warranted to capture TPIAT specific outcomes which determine QOL.
Carabott et al. (Sun,) studied this question.