Small bowel transplantation is required over time in approximately 75% of adults and 50% of children with short bowel syndrome (Rosien 2021).
In total, there are approximately 800 small bowel transplant patients worldwide. Currently, about 100 small bowel transplants are performed worldwide per year. In Germany, however, these have so far been performed only rarely. Reasons for this could be acute rejections and rejection-related complications (Müller 2003).
In children, approximately 40-80 small bowel transplants are performed per year (von Schweinitz 2009).
It is estimated that the incidence of short bowel syndrome is approximately 2 - 5 new cases per 1 million population (Pascher 2010).
In small bowel transplantation, other organs of the digestive tract can be transplanted in addition to the small bowel:
- small intestine only: ITx in 43 %.
- ITx plus liver: ILTx in 30 %
- ITx plus liver, pancreas and other organs such as stomach: multivisceral- MVTx in 24 %
- ITx without liver, plus pancreas and other organs such as stomach: modified multivisceral- mMVTx in 3 % (Herold 2022)