Objective:

Several bariatric surgeries have been related to the T2DM improvement in obese patients. Despite the different mechanism invoked for this improvement, many evidences showed that the pancreas cellularity is conditioned for the homeostatic physiological changes after these surgeries. Many authors reported the changes in beta-cell mass after some surgeries in healthy rats. We purpose to analyze the changes in β-cell cellularity and β-cell-mass after a severe malabsorptive surgical method. Thus, we studied several parameters of the islet morphometric composition after a massive jejunal resection.

Materials and methods:

We employed Goto-Kakizaki diabetic non-obese rats, which underwent the 50% resection of middle portion of the jejunum versus a control group. After 3 months, rats were sacrificed and pancreas was immunohistochemicaly studied.

Results:

The β-cell mass was analyzed and several parameters about the endocrine islet size distribution were studied. We report an increase of β-cell mass in massive resection surgical group versus controls. The islet distribution was significant different between both groups. Endocrine islets of surgical group were bigger with a different cellular distribution.

Conclusion:

According to the enteroendocrine changes related to surgeries in jejunum, as in other gastrointestinal portions, the cellularity of islets changes as an adaptive process to glycemic demands.