[Diagnosis, therapy and prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis in newborn infants]

The necrotizing enterocolitis is a severe and frequently fulminant disease with a considerable mortality. The main event is the enteral septicemia. Only prompt diagnostics and adequate therapy permit the survival of the newborns. The most important aspects of signs and symptoms, diagnostics and therapy as well as course of disease and prophylaxis are delineated, whereas the problems of pathogenesis are excluded.