DETROIT — The Henry Ford Transplant Institute — the only center in Michigan performing transplantation of the intestine — has received approval from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide more coverage to patients who are candidates for intestine transplant.
“CMS approval opens the door for our Medicare and Medicaid patients, who comprise more than 50 percent of individuals in Michigan in need of an intestine transplant,” says Marwan Kazimi, M.D., director of the Henry Ford Transplant Institute’s Small Bowel and Multivisceral Program. Henry Ford Hospital is among five programs in the country to offer a comprehensive small bowel and multivisceral transplant program.
There were 180 multivsceral transplants performed in the United States last year. Henry Ford Hospital performed the first intestine transplant in Michigan in August 2010.
“We cannot realistically ask our Medicaid patients in need of an intestine transplant to travel out-of-state to another institution so their procedure would be covered,” says Dr. Kazimi.
There are three types of intestine transplants including:
- Isolated Intestine Transplant for patients with short bowel syndrome and no liver disease.
- Combined Liver-Intestine Transplant for patients with short bowel syndrome and irreversible intravenous nutrition-induced liver disease.
- Composite Multivisceral Transplant for patients with short bowel syndrome requiring intestine, stomach, pancreas and/or liver transplantation; patients with portomesenteric thrombosis and liver disease; or patients with neuroendocrine tumors metastatic to the liver.
The Henry Ford Transplant Institute performs transplantation of the liver, kidney, pancreas, small bowel and multivisceral organs, lung, heart and bone marrow stem cell.
