Experience of 49 longitudinal intestinal lengthening procedures for short bowel syndrome

Forty-nine patients with a mean age of 25 months underwent a longitudinal intestinal lengthening procedure for short bowel syndrome (SBS) in our institution. Indications for the operation were dependence on parenteral nutrition in spite of adequate conservative management. The small bowel was lengthened from a mean of 27 cm to a mean of 51 cm. There was no intraoperative mortality. The following early complications occurred in our early series: ischemia of a short bowel segment of 2 cm, requiring resection in two patients, insufficiency of the longitudinal anastomosis in two patients and an intra-abdominal abscess in one. Four of 9 non-survivors died of liver failure and 3 of sepsis. Follow-up showed that 19 patients were weaned from parenteral nutrition after a mean of 9.1 months. Long-term complications encountered were dismotility with malabsorption due to bacterial overgrowth caused by progressive dilatation of the bowel, d-lactic acidosis, cholelithiasis and urolithiasis.

A longitudinal intestinal lengthening procedure is an effective and safe surgical approach for SBS, provided it is performed in time, the patient's preoperative condition is optimized and technical surgical details are taken into account.