Small bowel lengthening by mechanical distraction.

To evaluate whether the small bowel can be distracted by mechanical stress in analogy to limb lengthening by osteodistraction, a gut-lengthening apparatus was designed. This distractor was placed at the antimesenterical side of a defined jejunum segment in rabbits. Distraction was performed by 1 mm lengthening of the distractor once daily using extracorporal screws.