Briefly noted:  A recent retrospective study (BN Limketkai et al. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2016; 14: 1574-81) examined outcomes of 142 patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) out of a total of 1115 cases of intestinal transplantation.  The authors examined the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Since intestinal transplantation would be a very undesirable outcome in patients with CD, I titled this post as coming from the “Bad News Department.”  The good news is that in the last 15 years, patients with CD disease do not appear to have worsened outcomes compared to patients without CD.  Overall, during the period 1990-2014, the risk of graft failure was higher, mainly due to the initial 10 years.  Graft failure was 18.6% at 1 year, 38.7% at 5 years, and 49.2% at 10 years in patients with CD compared with 14.1%, 32.1% and 41.0% in non-CD patients.  The cumulative risk of death at 10 years for CD patients was 59.7%.

My take: It is good that intestinal transplantation outcomes for CD patients are now similar to all patients.  In addition, intestinal transplantation outcomes are improving. Nevertheless, there is still a high death rate over 10 years.