Neonatal Intestinal Atresia, Risk Factors and Outcome

Abstract

Intestinal atresia is a common cause of neonatal intestinal obstruction. Atresia involves complete obstruction of one segment or multiple segments of the intestine while stenosis is a narrowing or webbing of a segment of the intestine (Garza and Jaksic, 2005). Multiple postulated etiologies abounded in intestinal atresia, some studies demonstrate the role of late intrauterine mesenteric vascular accidents as the likely cause of jejunoileal atresias (Ashcraft et al., 2005). Fetal Thrombotic Vasculopathy and drugs as ergotamine and caffeine or pseudoephedrine are incriminated. Some types of atresia have been described that they run in families (Shorter et al., 2006). The outcome of management of intestinal atresia in most developed countries has markedly improved over the past decades as prenatal diagnosis, early presentation, availability of neonatal parenteral nutrition and neonatal surgical intensive care services are the norm.