Pediatric Intestinal Failure: A Review of the Scope of Disease and a Regional Model of a Multidisciplinary Care Team.

The term "intestinal failure" signifies the inability of the body to meet the digestive, absorptive and nutritive needs of the body. In children, intestinal failure is most often due to short bowel syndrome, often a result of necrotizing enterocolitis, a severe GI ischemic pathology that is generally associated with prematurity. With advances in neonatal care, more preterm infants are surviving, and subsequently we care for more children with SBS than ever before. These children require parenteral nutrition (PN) for survival. Neurodevelopmental outcomes are tied to nutrition in early years; thus these children are the most vulnerable to the sequelae of intestinal failure. As such, the development of multi-disciplinary intestinal rehabilitation programs have emerged as the state of the art in the care of children with intestinal failure.