ABSTRACT
Role of the Surgeon in Management of Intestinal Failure ...................................281 Principles of Early Surgical Management ............................................................281 Definitive Surgical Management ...........................................................................282 Conclusions and Future Direction.........................................................................291 References..............................................................................................................292
Intestinal failure is simply defined as failure of the intestine to adequately perform its primary function of nutrient and fluid absorption. This in turn results in a failure to meet the individual’s caloric needs via the enteral route and also causes fluid and electrolyte imbalances, frequently requiring parenteral compensation. Such a simplistic definition avoids the inherent problems in attempting to define short bowel syndrome. While the latter term is intuitive, there is considerable disagreement as to what exactly is “short.” This problem is further compounded by limited available data on normal bowel length at different ages in the normal population, difficulties in measurement of bowel length, the influence of the site of resection on outcome, and finally, the considerable individual differences in outcomes among patients with apparently similar gut lengths.1-5 It is for these reasons that we prefer the term intestinal failure to short bowel syndrome.
