Diagnosis and characteristics of the clinical course of necrotizing enterocolitis in children
Karavaeva, S.A.
Vestnik Khirurgii Imeni I. I. Grekova 161(4): 41-44
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 0042-4625 PMID: 12577551 Document Number: 545377
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a disease of unknown etiology affecting mainly premature newborns and occurring in about 1 to 7% of all admissions to neonatal intensive care units. Among the greatest problems is the early diagnosis and adequate and timely treatment, surgery included. In the last quarter of the century the survival rate of premature infants was gradually increasing in national regions and worldwide and accordingly there is an increasing number of babies with NEC. To date, to treat patients with the diagnosed enterocolitis is a complicated problem. The mortality rate among the children remains high. In the period from 1978 to 2000 432 patients with NEC were admitted to the St. Petersburg Center of Neonatal Surgery in the Children Hospital N 1,300 of them requiring surgical interventions. The author's personal experience with the diagnosis and treatment of the disease allowed three main forms of the clinical course of the disease to be established: superacute, acute and subacute.