The artificial endocrine pancreas in clinical practice and research. The present position and future perspectives.

The artificial endocrine pancreas (AEP) is a controlled glucose and/or insulin infusion system in which continuously monitored blood sugar values are fed to a computerised analyser that uses predetermined algorithms to establish the doses to be administered. Since its first appearance in clinical practice and diabetological research during the Sixties, the AEP has been modified in various ways to overcome technical problems associated with the gluco-sensor and algorithms so as to make better use of the glucose-insulin feedback mechanism, and hence obtain a closer correspondence to physiological islet cell activity. As a result of these changes, the AEP can be employed in accordance with the physiopathological principles of insulin secretion in a variety of clinical conditions to secure the short-term control of metabolic alterations in the diabetic. Surgery is one field in which the AEP is used to great advantage, since this and its accompanying anaesthetics are the source of stress, which in turn may result in a rapid and sometimes serious postoperative metabolic derangement, including an increased secretion of anti-insulin hormones. The AEP has also been proposed for diabetic pregnancy and for the treatment of subjects in diabetic coma. It has proved useful in the diagnosis and management of hypoglycaemia due to organic hyperinsulinism, in diabetics with renal failure, in the honeymoon period, and in cases of unstable diabetes. The versatility of its application and its underlying physiopathological principles have enabled the AEP to be predominantly employed in research.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)