Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2016; 22(24): 5616-5622
Published online Jun 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i24.5616
Successful treatment of ileal ulcers caused by immunosuppressants in two organ transplant recipients
Yun-Wei Guo, Hua-Ying Gu, Kodjo-Kunale Abassa, Xian-Yi Lin, Xiu-Qing Wei
Yun-Wei Guo, Hua-Ying Gu, Kodjo-Kunale Abassa, Xian-Yi Lin, Xiu-Qing Wei, Department of Gastroenterology, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510630, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Guo YW and Gu HY contributed equally to this work; Guo YW, Gu HY, Abassa KK, Lin XY, and Wei XQ analyzed the data and diagnosed and treated the patient; Guo YW, Gu HY, Abassa KK and Wei XQ wrote the paper.
Supported by Guangdong Science and Technology Program, No. 2012B061700072.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University.
Informed consent statement: The patients reported in this article provided informed written consent prior to manuscript preparation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There was no conflict of interest in this work.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Xiu-Qing Wei, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, No. 600, Tianhe Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510630, Guangdong Province, China. wei-xiuqing@163.com
Telephone: +86-20-85253095 Fax: +86-20-85253336
Received: March 3, 2016
Peer-review started: March 4, 2016
First decision: April 1, 2016
Revised: April 10, 2016
Accepted: April 20, 2016
Article in press: April 20, 2016
Published online: June 28, 2016
Processing time: 109 Days and 19.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: There are few reports available on ileal ulcers caused by immunosuppressants. Herein, we report a liver transplant recipient and a renal transplant recipient who had multiple large ulcers in the distal ileum and ileocecal valve. Ulcers rapidly healed after withdrawal of sirolimus or tacrolimus and administration of thalidomide. No lymphoma, tuberculosis, or infection of cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, or fungus was found in either patient. There was no recurrence of ulcers or organ rejection. In some post-transplantation cases with ileal ulcers, sirolimus or tacrolimus should be considered as a risk factor because of their inhibitory effects on wound healing. Withdrawing them or switching to other immunosuppressants might be effective.