Fragmented patient-reported outcome measures currently characterize the clinical landscape of type 3c diabetesMapping how patients experience life with type 3c diabetes

BackgroundType 3c diabetes is a heterogeneous secondary diabetes caused by pancreatic disease, injury or resection. Glycaemic outcomes alone do not capture the combined effects of insulin deficiency, impaired counter-regulation, exocrine insufficiency, pain, altered nutrition and treatment burden. We mapped standardized patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) across aetiologies and pancreatic resection extent.MethodsMEDLINE via PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection were searched from inception to 23–24 July 2026, supplemented by public trial registries and targeted citation checking. A scoping review framed by Population–Concept–Context followed JBI guidance and PRISMA-ScR. An automation-assisted title/abstract pathway was followed by independent report-level adjudication by two reviewers.ResultsThe searches yielded 5,132 records and 3,372 unique database records after deduplication. Fifty-six reports underwent independent report-level adjudication; one was not retrieved, 15 were excluded and 40 were included. In a reproducible post hoc random validation sample of 200 of 3,321 early exclusions, exact and binary reviewer agreement were 100% (Cohen’s kappa = 1.00); three records marked unclear by both reviewers were excluded after targeted adjudication, leaving no eligible record in the sample (0/200; Wilson 95% confidence interval 0–1.88%). Twenty-six included reports concerned pancreatic resection or an insulin-treated TPIAT subgroup, 11 cystic-fibrosis-related diabetes, two diabetes secondary to chronic pancreatitis and one fibrocalculous pancreatic diabetes. Generic health and physical function were often impaired after total pancreatectomy, whereas some comparator studies reported similar PAID, ADDQoL or treatment-satisfaction results to type 1 or other insulin-treated diabetes. No report used SARC-F. Only six reports were available to the authors in full text; the favorable technology signals depended on abstract-based reports and were therefore hypothesis-generating.ConclusionsPatient-reported burden in type 3c diabetes is multidimensional and measurement remains fragmented. Future studies should combine complementary measures and report aetiology, diabetes timing and total versus partial resection explicitly.