Short bowel syndrome: clinical manifestations following extensive intestinal by-pass.

A personal experience with 43 cases of end-to-side jejunoileal bypass is reported. Two major clinical entities appear to emerge from the present study and in accordance with data from the literature: liver failure and the so-called enteric disease from bypass. Such observations were confirmed by the results obtained from an experimental investigation on 96 Wistar rats. The fact that the intestinal bacterial contamination seems to be the common cause of both effects and complications of intestinal bypass should limit by itself possible further developments of the procedure.