Small Bowel Disease

Symptoms

Small bowel disease is a category of various disorders and not a singular condition itself. Therefore, symptoms will vary based on the underlying condition. For example, ulcerative colitis symptoms will differ from signs of a small bowel obstruction (blockage). However, many small bowel diseases can cause similar symptoms, including:

• Abdominal distension (swelling)
• Bloating
• Diarrhea
• Difficulty eating
• Dehydration
• Nausea
• Vomiting

Risk factors and causes

Many different disorders can affect the small intestine. Some small bowel diseases are caused by inflammation or infection, while others may be hereditary. Other times, complications after surgery can lead to small bowel problems.

A common cause of small bowel disease in children is short gut syndrome, a congenital disorder in which an infant's intestine is too short or underdeveloped to allow normal food digestion.

Diagnosis

If you have signs of small bowel disease, it’s important to see an experienced gastroenterologist who can thoroughly evaluate your digestive system and identify the root cause of your symptoms. After taking a complete medical history and conducting a physical exam, your doctor may recommend one or more of the following tests to further understand and diagnose your condition:

• Blood tests
• Endoscopy, including colonoscopy, deep enteroscopy, upper endoscopy, or video capsule endoscopy
• Imaging Scans, such as CT scans, MRI, or ultrasound
• Stool tests

Small bowel disease treatment

Treatment for small bowel disease will vary based on the specific condition affecting your GI system. Learn more below about treatment for some of the most common disorders affecting the small intestine:

• Celiac disease treatment

• Gastrointestinal motility disorder treatments

• Inflammatory bowel disease treatments

Treatment for small intestine failure

If your short bowel is significantly damaged by disease or trauma, then you may have intestinal failure. Intestinal failure is the loss of the absorptive capacity of the small bowel.

If your small bowel is not working well enough to absorb the fluid and nutrition you need daily, your doctor may recommend total parenteral nutrition (TPN). TPN is a liquid filled with all the nutrients your body needs to survive, given through a central line right into the blood stream. By putting nutrients right into the bloodstream, TPN does the job of the small bowel. However, this is not a long-term solution for most patients. We may recommend a small bowel transplant if other treatment options have been unsuccessful.

Small bowel transplant surgery

A small bowel transplant is the replacement of a new intestine in an individual with irreversible intestinal failure. The purpose of this transplant is to restore intestinal function so patients can eat again and not require TPN. It is used to treat intestinal failure when other treatments, such as parenteral nutrition (intravenous tube feeding or TPN) are not successful.

At MedStar Health, our experts lead the largest intestinal transplant program in the United States at our MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute. There, our small bowel transplant team members are dedicated to supporting our transplant patients, from the first steps in their journey  to transplantation and managing their healthy organ for life.

Learn more