On September 5, Silvestre Adventist Hospital, part of the Adventist Health Brazil network, performed the first isolated bowel transplant in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The roughly six-hour surgery, carried out in partnership with Brazil’s public healthcare system, gave a patient named Viviane a small and large intestine transplant, without the simultaneous transplantation of other organs such as the liver, pancreas, or stomach.
Viviane had lived with short bowel syndrome, intestinal failure, and severe malnutrition as complications of Crohn’s disease — conditions that had left her dependent for years on nutrition delivered directly into her bloodstream. “I hope it brings back all the dreams I couldn’t fulfill,” she said of the transplant. “That it gives me strength, health, and the means to remain the person I am.”
According to chief surgeon Eduardo Fernandes, the team drew on experience gained during the state’s first multivisceral transplant, and surgeon Felipe Pedreira Tavares de Mello reported that the operation proceeded without complications. Since 2010, Silvestre Adventist Hospital has performed 1,688 kidney and liver transplants, and holds a place in transplant history as the site of the world’s first pancreas transplant using the isolated segmental technique.
The surgery took place during Green September, Brazil’s annual awareness month for organ donation, and capped what hospital director Cristian Denis da Silva called 16 years of pioneering work in liver and kidney transplants at the institution.
Source: Adventist News Network
