Shirafkan A, Montalbano M, McGuire J, Rastellini C, Cicalese L. New approaches to increase intestinal length: Methods used for intestinal regeneration and bioengineering. World J Transplant 2016; 6(1): 1-9 [PMID: 27011901 DOI: 10.5500/wjt.v6.i1.1]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Luca Cicalese, MD, FACS, Professor, Texas Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX 77555, United States. lucicale@utmb.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Transplantation
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
World J Transplant. Mar 24, 2016; 6(1): 1-9 Published online Mar 24, 2016. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v6.i1.1
New approaches to increase intestinal length: Methods used for intestinal regeneration and bioengineering
Ali Shirafkan, Mauro Montalbano, Joshua McGuire, Cristiana Rastellini, Luca Cicalese
Ali Shirafkan, Mauro Montalbano, Joshua McGuire, Cristiana Rastellini, Luca Cicalese, Texas Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, United States
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper and design of the study, literature review, editing and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflicts of interest to disclose.
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: Luca Cicalese, MD, FACS, Professor, Texas Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX 77555, United States. lucicale@utmb.edu
Telephone: +1-409-7722405 Fax: +1-409-7477364
Received: October 1, 2015 Peer-review started: October 9, 2015 First decision: November 4, 2015 Revised: December 27, 2015 Accepted: January 8, 2016 Article in press: January 11, 2016 Published online: March 24, 2016 Processing time: 169 Days and 10.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Several methods were used to elongate the short and insufficient segment of intestine in patients suffering short bowel syndrome. These methods include transplantation of an intestinal graft, intestinal elongation, and techniques to create a bioengineered segment of intestine. Innovations in using stem cells, organoid units of intestine and bio-scaffolds allow the modern medicine to engineer segments of functional intestinal tissue in animal models. However, to reach the goal of implanting a fully functional bioengineered intestine in human improvements are still required. This article will review various methods to approach this condition from surgical techniques to elongate the intestine to the application of stem cells and bio scaffolds for creating three dimensional intestinal structure.
