[Living-donor intestinal transplantation. First report in Latin-American]

Intestinal transplants as opposed to total parenteral nutrition is more physiological alternative to long term in patients with irreversible intestinal failure. According to the Intestinal Transplant Registry and the Organ Transplant Network there are 32 living-donor and 957 cadaveric-donor intestinal transplants worldwide. In Latin America there are no reports on this subject. We present the first successful case of intestinal transplantation from living donor in Latin America.

Male patient, 20 years old, with short bowel, secondary to fire gun injuries that irreversibly affected mesenteric circulation so it was necessary to completely remove the small intestine, right and transverse colon. The patient needed ambulatory total parenteral nutrition and had hepatic failure related to it. The 44-year-old father of the patient was the intestinal living donor. Cold ischemia time was 16 min and warm ischemia time of 47 min. Immunosuppression was based on thymoglobulin, methylprednisolone, tacrolimus and mycophenolic acid. One month after the transplantation, the patient is well and the intestinal graft has adequate and functioning state, without evidence of rejection.

Intestinal transplantation in our country is a procedure that can be performed with good outcome and offers a unique therapeutic alternative for a patient with irreversible intestinal failure.