[Experimental enteral segmental transplant. Functional response and surgical complications]

Total enteral transplant associated or not to other abdominal organs has a high degree of morbidity due to immunologic and functional complications that have limited its therapeutic application. Segmentary transplants have demonstrated experimentally to have a better control to immune response, however there are still doubts on its functional effectiveness in terms of other segments.

In order to evaluate surgical and functional morbidity without immunologic interference, syngenic segmentary enteral transplants were done, from three different levels in the intestine.

Growing syngenic Lewis rats were randomly divided into five groups; four of them had 90% enterectomy with a simultaneous transplant of a 30% of the proximal, medial and distal segments in the first three groups and 90% in the fourth one. The fifth group was used as a control.

Of the 54 rats that were transplanted, one third developed late complications. Only half of them showed controllable causes, the complications were proportional in all groups. Among surviving four months after transplant, no group had stopped growing, however, the proximal transplant group had significant (P < 0.05) deficit in weight with respect to the other groups. All the other groups showed growth patterns similar to the control group. Plasma concentrations of tryglicerydes, cholesterol and glucose after the maltosa test were similar in all animals. Low albumin concentrations were observed only in the proximal transplant group (P < 0.05).

Medial and listal segmentary transplants showed the best functional adaptability in terms of ponderal growth, similar to animals with total enteral restitution or intestinal integrity.