Into the limits of neonatal surgery

After 33 years experience in neonatal surgery the considerable progress in this branch of medicine can be reviewed. The initially very high mortality was drastically reduced by the foundation of the first neonatal surgical unit in Liverpool in 1953, a unit which in the succeeding years was copied in most large paediatric surgical centres all over the world. The reasons why these units have today tended to become obsolete are discussed. Neonatal intensive therapy units for medical as well as surgical cases are now preferred in most centres. The great advances in chemotherapy, the therapy of respiratory complications, intravenous alimentation and monitoring of the patient have further decreased the operative mortality in neonates to such a degree that today only few problems remain.