Study on the relationship between pancreatic stiffness and pancreatic islet function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

JING Xiaorui; LIU Jia; SUN Fei; WANG Jia; ZHAO Guohong; ZHANG Wencheng; GAO Bin

doi:10.13276/j.issn.2097-1656.2025.02.014

Abstract：Objective To investigate the relationship between pancreatic stiffness and pancreatic islet function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM)by using virtual touch tissue quantification(VTQ)technique.Methods A total of 120 hospitalized T2DM patients(89 males and 31 females),with a mean age of(52.38±12.81)years and diabetes duration of(7.82±6.28)years,were collected in Department of Endocrinology,Tangdu Hospital,Air Force Medical University from June 2020 to January 2021.All subjects underwent anthropometric measurements and fasting blood glucose,fasting C-peptide,glycosylated hemoglobin and other biochemical indicators.VTQ technique was used to measure the pancreatic stiffness.Patients were divided into groups according to the tertiles of pancreatic stiffness,and the C-peptide levels of different pancreatic stiffness groups were compared by one-way ANOVA.Pearson correlation analysis and multiple stepwise linear regression analysis were used for statistical correlation analysis.Results The C-peptide levels decreased gradually with the increase of pancreatic stiffness(F=8.241,P＜0.05).Pearson correlation analysis showed that pancreatic stiffness was positively correlated with diabetes duration(r=0.339,P＜0.01),and negatively correlated with C-peptide levels(r=-0.308,P＜0.01).Multiple linear regression analysis showed that pancreatic stiffness and diabetes duration were independent influencing factors of C-peptide levels(standardized regression coefficients β=-0.228,-0.051,P＜0.05).Conclusion Increased pancreatic stiffness is associated with decreased C-peptide levels.VTQ technique can be used to evaluate pancreatic stiffness,and pancreatic stiffness can be used as an indicator to measure pancreatic islet beta cell function in clinical practice.