Nutrition and quality of life following small intestinal transplantation.

BACKGROUND

The outcome from small bowel transplantation (SBTx) has improved progressively over the past decade raising questions as to whether indications should be broadened from those currently followed based on "TPN (total parenteral nutrition) failure."

OBJECTIVE AND METHODS

To assess current outcome, we studied the effect of transplantation on nutritional autonomy, organ function, and quality of life (QoL) measured by a validated self-administered questionnaire containing 26 domains and 130 questions, for a minimum of 12 months in a cohort of 46 consecutively transplanted patients between June 2003 and July 2004. The majority of transplanted patients (76%) had intestinal failure because of extreme short bowel, the remainder having either chronic pseudo-obstruction or porto-mesenteric vein thrombosis (PMVT). All but the PMVT patients were dependent on home TPN (HPN) (median 2, range 0-25 yr) and had developed serious recurrent infective complications with (25%) or without central vein thrombosis and liver failure. Sixty-one percent received a liver in addition to a small intestine.

RESULTS

Follow-up was for a mean of 21 (range 12-36) months. Five patients died, two with chronic graft rejection. All the remaining patients have graft survival with an average of 1.2 (range 0-5) episodes of acute rejection. All patients were weaned from TPN by a median of 18 days (range 1-117 days) and from tube feeding by day 69 (range 22-272 days). There was a significant improvement in overall assessment of QoL and in 13 of 26 of the specific domains examined.

CONCLUSION

Our results confirm the claim that a new era has dawned for SBTx, such that, with continued progress, it can potentially become an alternative to HPN for the management of permanent intestinal failure, rather than a last-chance treatment for "TPN failure."