Colon Transplant

Sorry Nanners... Forgot to re-intruduce myself. Was known as Southpaw75 in the past. Dx'd w/crohns Jan 00. Past meds were pred, 6mp, immuran, asacol, remicade, humira, several types of probiotics, lots of vitimins, folic acid, and pain management.... have had three peri-rectal bypasses, 4 strictures, 2 resections, and 1 illeostomy. Lots of fun that crohns has afforded me in 15 yrs. Also have been dx'd with mild bi-polar, fibromayalgia, panniculitis, and pyro-gangrenoesum... last one really sux, have to wear jeans evrywhere i go in public plus i have a ventral hernia the size of a softball that will put me under the knife once again next month...

This is funny...only because at one point I was thinking the same thing.  I would think this would be a fairly simple procedure and wonder why they don't do it? 

Unlike the kidney and the heart, the intestinal tract is but one part of the digestive system, a delicate system despite all it's hard work. What your talking about here is a transplant of a part of the system, not the whole.

Not only is the digestive system, then, huge, esophogus to anus, including the liver, pancreas and spleen, it interacts with the outside world, like our skin (doctor's consider the digestive system outside the body), it is full of bacteria and each of us have our own garden. So to take out one piece and put in another comes with a host of infection issues, on top of the usual transplant issues, and since the later must be treated with high octane immuno suppressants, the prior is more likely and more deadly.

I heard/read somewhere that transplants of the entire digestive system are being done, in part because of the gut bacteria issues.

I lived with an illeostomy for 4 years, there are days, like now -- I'm flaring -- when I miss it, even though I know a pouch does not prevent further CD attacks.

Yes, it has to be attended to, but hey, at least it's not dialysis.

Here's a rather nicely written article that gives some info on the complexities of bowel transplant. http://www.theage.com.au/national/intestinal-fortitude-required-20091113-ieta.html

Having watched friends go through kidney transplant, I'd rather have a pouch that have to take all the drugs, which have much higher risks and side effects than a pouch does.

We are lucky that some one figured out we can live with these attachments.

Having read the Op reports and seen the current outcomes of visceral transplants, I would never go through one. The last expert physician I spoke with on the subject said that it is still being considered for those with short bowel syndrome, but only for those in the most dire situations (as said above).
The biggest problem that I have seen in the OP reports I have read is not from the transplant itself, but from complications. The risk of infection in multiple systems is huge. Also the problem of moving so much around to get to the anastamoses leads to complications with other organs.
I work with our organ transplant product and spoke with the facility network creators we use. Most of them agree that a few more facilities are being approved as eligible based on a few better outcomes. However, they would not send their loved ones for the transplant as the best surgeons still see many risks. They do feel that this is a possibility in the distant future but it would not be to cure a disease but to repair past surgeries realting to a disease....i.e as said above to fix past operations that resulted in short bowel.

My cousin was just telling me a while ago that she saw a show that they were talking about this. Apparently they had it on the news about a person having a colon transplant and doing so well after it....but I wondered...wouldn't your immune system attack you at some point again anyway?