Intestinal transplants are a very new procedure performed in very limited locations around the country.
According to Mount Sinai Medical Center, the operations are useful when the intestine is unable to absorb the nutrients from food or the fluids from the intestinal tract.
Patients typically are fed through parenteral nutrition intravenously before a transplant, and after the transplant, until they can eat normal food.
Transplants are needed to treat intestinal failure, which is when the intestine cannot take nutrients from the food it digests. When children suffer the condition, they are often unable to develop normally.
The primary causes of intestinal failure in adults are Crohn's disease, superior mesenteric artery or vein thrombosis, trauma, desmoids tumor, volvulus, pseudo-obstruction, massive resection secondary to tumor and radiation enteritis.
Once approved for treatment, patients are put on an organ waiting list. Once an intestine is available for the surgery, patients are quickly notified and the process continues.
The surgery itself can take up to 12 hours.
There are several types of surgery. Isolated intestinal transplant is for patients with intestinal failure, but not liver failure. The diseased portion of the small intestine is replaced with a healthy small intestine from a donor.
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Intestines
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In a combined liver intestine transplant, the diseased liver and intestine are each replaced with a healthy one from a donor.
Surgeons begin by connecting donor's blood vessels to the patient's to establish a blood supply to the transplanted organ. The new intestine is also connected to the patient's gastrointestinal tract.
Doctors connect a portion of the small bowel through the abdominal wall, allowing waste to pass out of the body (Source: University of California San Francisco Medical Center).
Hospital stays post-surgery depend upon the patient's condition and health and can last from weeks to months.
Patients usually stay in a hospital's ICU, and then are transferred back to normal care. Physician care includes frequent blood draws and biopsies of the transplanted intestine.
These tests tell the doctors the current health state of the organ. After the transplant, most patients can begin orally eating their food again.
According to a 2009 medical update by UCSF, one-year survival rates after an intestinal transplant is 85 percent. Also, 80 percent of transplant patients are able to eventually transition back to a fully oral diet.
