[Acute necrotizing enterocolitis in an adult--a clinical study]

The authors retrospectively reviewed 24 cases of necrotizing enterocolitis, in which the diagnosis was made or confirmed intraoperatively. This article points to the complex pathophysiology and preoperative diagnostic difficulties of necrotizing enterocolitis due to its clinical heterogeneity and lack of specificity of the laboratory findings. Given all these preoperative problems quite too often the best operatory moment is los and despite the somehow simple intraoperative diagnosis and the modern, well established surgical principles: resection of the necrotic segment with secondary reanastomosis (whenever possible), the post-therapeutic mortality rate remains disappointingly high (70.8%).