Reply

We appreciate Dr Buchman's thoughtful commentary on our study of the changing trends of bowel resections in patients with Crohn's disease with and without short-bowel syndrome and/or intestinal failure (SBS-IF).1 We agree that there are notable limitations inherent in the use of administrative databases, such as the National Inpatient Sample, and in the use of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for analyses that require significant precision. We similarly acknowledge that the ICD, 9th revision, code 579.3 may not be the ideal identifier of SBS-IF because of its modest specificity.

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