Small Bowel Transplant—Observations from Initial Setback

Small bowel transplants are performed all over the world with acceptable success rates. Although there are isolated reports of small bowel transplants from India, a robust intestinal transplant programme similar to western countries is lacking. Our aim is to share our experience to build up on the evolving field of small bowel transplants in India. Deceased donor small bowel transplant was performed for three patients with intestinal failure, two for short gut syndrome following surgery and one for visceral myopathy. All were on preoperative total parenteral nutrition for varying periods of time (6 to 13 months). There were multiple episodes of line sepsis in all patients. Post-transplant, all received induction immunosuppression with anti-thymocyte globulin (first two patients) or alemtuzumab (3rd patient). All had systemic venous drainage and stoma. Protocol weekly intestinal biopsies were done in all patients. All died in hospital at 24, 12 and 28 days following surgery. Biopsy-proven rejection was observed in only patient who had received ABO-compatible non-identical graft (O to A). This patient subsequently developed vascular thrombosis necessitating explant of the graft. Sepsis due to multidrug resistant bacteria was the reason for mortality in the remaining two patients. Despite the absence of technical complications, successful small bowel transplant seems to be an elusive entity for the Indian transplant community.