Enhancing post-operative hypothyroidism treatment: rat thyroid autotransplantation into a pre-vascularized, retrievable cell pouch™ device.

Abstract

To overcome the limitations of lifelong hormone replacement therapy for post-operative hypothyroidism, we propose autologous thyroid transplantation into the Cell Pouch™ (CP), an implantable and retrievable medical device that supports vascularization and a homeostatic environment for cell grafting. The CP is currently in clinical trials for islet transplantation in type-1 diabetes, demonstrating its capacity to support long-term graft viability. Here, we apply the CP for thyroid tissue transpla