A new bowel elongation technique for the short-bowel syndrome using the isolated bowel segment Iowa models.

For the management of infants with the short-bowel syndrome, we developed a two-stage bowel elongation procedure based on experimental studies of what we term as an isolated bowel segment. The procedure consists of: (1) initial coaptation of the antimesenteric surface of a segment of bowel to host organs such as liver and abdominal wall, and (2) after collaterals have developed from these host organs, secondary longitudinal split of the bowel to provide two bowel loops, one from its antimesenteric half and the other from its mesenteric half. These are arranged in series by end-to-end anastomosis to double the original bowel length. The antimesenteric loop is totally free of its original mesenteric attachment but viable by vascular collaterals formed across the coaptation site. This procedure was successfully used for an infant who was born with 17 cm of duodenum and 17 cm of the distal colon from first trimester intrauterine midgut volvulus. At completion of the multistaged procedures at the age of 1 year when we reentered the abdomen for duodenoplasty, his small bowel measured 90 cm in length. He is currently taking 50% to 60% of required calories via the enteric route at 18 months of age. This procedure is suitable for elongating the duodenum of infants when other alternatives such as the Bianci procedure are not feasible because of mesenteric absence.