Man undergoes small intestine transplant, first time in Maharashtra

Dr Gaurav Chaubal, chief multi-organ transplant surgeon at Jupiter Hospital, said, “Small bowel or intestinal failure means that the bowel is unable to absorb from food the nutrients, fluids and electrolytes that are essential to live. Due to short bowel syndrome, the patient was provided nutrients by TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) — nutrients were supplied intravenously. Through this transplant, we replaced six feet of the diseased or shortened small bowel with a healthy donor’s bowel.”

Once the intestine was allocated to the recipient, the team of surgeons from Jupiter Hospital retrieved the small intestine from the donor and the recipient surgery started. Before the transplant, the patient was surviving on parenteral nutrition for three months.

Dr Rajendra Patankar, CEO, Jupiter Hospital, Pune, said, “This transplant surgery should help the patient regain his ability to digest food and return to normalcy and come off parenteral nutrition in due course of time.”

According to Chaubal, the challenges in the post-operation period are to manage the immunosuppression effectively and wean the patient from parenteral nutrition to enteral nutrition.