Urological complications and enteric conversion after pancreas transplantation with bladder drainage

In summary, we feel that excellent 5-year patient and graft survival results can be obtained using SPK transplantation with bladder drainage technique. Despite the good results, a significant morbidity with prolonged hospitalization is seen after pancreas transplantation. This increased morbidity is due to infectious complications, rejection and urological complications. As a result of the popularity of bladder drainage, the complications after pancreas transplantation have shifted from intraabdominal to urological. Enteric conversion after SPK transplantation is the treatment of choice for chronic hematuria and a duodenal segment leak. In our hands this method appeared to be a safe and reliable procedure with a low complication rate. Enteric conversion should be considered in early leaks after failure of one attempt to suture repair the anastomotic site. In larger leaks or late leaks, it is advisable to perform an immediate enteric conversion. With the considerations above one might ask why enteric conversion is not our current primary choice for the initial transplant procedure. We have, however, noted a higher incidence of postoperative intraabdominal septic complications as well as mycotic aneurysms at the arterial suture line in a small series of 16 primarily enterically drained pancreas transplants. We also fear that the leakage rate after primary duodenoenteric drainage could be higher because of significant edema after transplantation in the preserved duodenal segment. We doubt, therefore, that the primary anastomosis with the bowel is as safe as one performed during enteric conversion when preservation injury has been resolved. At that point the patient is in stable condition and on significantly lower doses of immunosuppression than at the time of transplantation. This study demonstrates that urological complications constitute a major part of the morbidity after SPK transplantation. Despite this fact, appropriate treatment including enteric conversion can resolve most of the complications and prevent long-term morbidity or even graft loss.