A rapid method of visualizing the pancreatic islets for studies of islet capillary blood flow using non-radioactive microspheres.

A technique is described for visualization of the pancreatic islets in the rat by simple dark field illumination of pieces of the frozen and thawed pancreas. By using this method, microspheres, injected for studies of the capillary blood flow, can be readily located and counted in both the islets and the exocrine parenchyma. The procedure could be useful both for rapid estimations of the total number of islets and for studies of their microcirculation.