News

The First of its Kind in the Region

After a successful 10-hour intestinal transplantation, a medical team at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh put an end to the suffering of a Saudi youth (20-year-old) who suffered from "short-bowel syndrome", which resulted in many health problems, including temporary blindness. The surgery was the first of its kind in the region.

The intestinal transplant team at KFSHR&RC said that the transplantation surgery was successfully performed and the patient began to take oral food three days after the surgery.

The patient now is in a good health condition several weeks after the transplantation surgery and is hosted in the hospital housing allocated to transplant patients for a planned period of 3-6 months for the purpose of a medical follow-up in outpatients’ clinic to be fully recovered then after the patient can return to his home at the southern region exercising his normal life and roll back to the school, which stopped because of his illness five years ago.

The medical team stated that the patient was suffering of “short-bowel syndrome" developing malabsorption, malnutrition and had undergone resection of long segments of small intestine in a hospital before being transferred to KFSH&RC in Riyadh.

At KFSH&RC patient was diagnosed comprehensively with multidisciplinary medical teams and was decided to conduct intestinal transplantation to the patient after receding the other treatment options.

The medical team reported that the patient was given (vitamin A) by intravenous injection to restore his vision which was lost as a result of malabsorption, malnutrition. Close coordination was done with Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation (SCOT) to find a suitable brain dead donor matching blood type which was successfully happened after gaining the family’s donor consent, the medical team added.

Dr. Majid Al Fayyadh, CEO KFSH&RC, praised the success of the operation to the medical, nursing, and technical teams, following his visit to the patient and reassuring his health, stressing that the real success is “a patient satisfaction and recovery”.

Dr. Al Fayyadh said in a press release that the medical team that was behind the success of the operation is a large and multi-disciplinary in the fields of surgery, internal medicine and intensive care in addition to departments of radiology, nursing, pharmacy and laboratories, stressing that this system of work is integrated and equipped with advanced infrastructure of operating rooms and diagnostic devices. “thanks to God, the success of this complicated operation is an added value to the other organ transplants in which KFSH&RC achieves advanced results both numerically and qualitatively regionally & globally”, Dr. AlFayyadh added.

The medical team stressed that intestinal transplantation is one of the most difficult and complicated organ transplantation where it is necessary to give the patient immune system inhibitors and to conduct continuous daily lab tests of him to maintain his life during the first six months after the transplantation.