[Treatment of short bowel syndrome]

On the basis of personal experience and the latest reports in the literature on the treatment of short bowel syndrome, the clinical and therapeutic aspects of the malabsorption syndrome arising after removal of long segments of the small intestine are analysed with emphasis on the salient features and particularly the critical phase constituted by the transfer from parenteral to enteral and oral nutrition whose importance for the maintenance of life is objectively confirmed by the adaptive response of the remaining small bowel (compensatory hypertrophy).