**4.1. Surgical techniques**

Pancreas retrieval for both whole organ and cellular transplantation necessitates meticulous surgical technique. In comparison to the liver and kidneys, the pancreas is more commonly damaged at retrieval, which subsequently results in non-utilization of a significant proportion of procured pancreata [37]. The organ must be procured without any parenchymal and/or capsular breach, and its arterial inflow and venous outflow vessels must be clearly identified (tagged) and maintained for subsequent back-table reconstruction when used for whole pancreas [38]. The extent of organ and vascular dissection depends upon whether the retrieval is from a brain-dead (DBD) or circulatory death (DCD) donor; a large proportion of pancreas dissection can be undertaken in the warm phase for DBD donors, whilst pursuit of the DCD pathway necessitates wholly cold-phase dissection, which is potentially more difficult as appropriate anatomy is harder to identify.
