Intestinal perforation: Rewiev of our experience in the neonatal period

Aim: Despite rapid advances in neonatal intensive care, intestinal perforation (IP) has remained a major and life- threatening complication in neonates. Spontaneous intestinal perforation (SIP) is a recently defined entity, which is mostly seen in very low birthweight (VLBW) newborn infants. We want to report and discuss etiology, clinical features, and outcome of our IP cases. Material and Method: Charts of thirteen infants with IP was reviewed in terms of gender, birth weight, gestational age, day of perforation, diagnosis, location of perforation, type of surgery performed, and clinical outcome. Results: There were nine boys and four girls. Eight of them were preterm. Mean perforation time was day nine postnatally. 11 infants had the causes of IP including meconium ileus (n= 6), necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) (n= 4), esophageal atresia (n= 1), following malrotation surgery (n= 1) and, three of them were on mechanical ventilator support. Two VLBW infants developed IP following oral ibuprofen administration. Perforation occurred in the distal ileum in the majority of infants. Conclusions: We found that essentially NEC, meconium ileus, and mechanical ventilation were associated with intestinal perforations and SIP following oral ibuprofen administration was observed in two preterm infants.