Development of perioperative glycemic control using an artificial endocrine pancreas

It is well known that tight glycemic control (TGC) in patients with diabetes mellitus is the most important to reduce complications, such as nephropathy, neuropathy, and retinopathy. Also, surgical stress induced hyperglycemia leading to glucose toxicity is the main cause of infectious complications after surgery. Recently perioperative TGC has been proven an effective method to reduce postoperative infectious complications and accelerate enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS), with the main purpose of short staying hospital. However, conventional TGC with open-loop glycemic control system is likely to induce not only occurrence of hypoglycemia but also unstable glycemic control. To solve these problems, we have involved introduction of novel glycemic control using an artificial pancreas (AP) with closed-loop glycemic control system since 2006. To date, this novel perioperative glycemic control was performed in more than 400 surgical patients. As a result, we established stable and safe TGC using an AP to improve surgical outcomes without hypoglycemia. In this paper, we report current scientific evidence focusing on perioperative glycemic control using an AP.