ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Neonatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1571921
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances and Challenges in Neonatal Surgery: Congenital and Acquired ConditionsView all 8 articles
Analysis of Early Surgical Indications and Related Factors in Neonatal Necrotizing Enterocolitis
Provisionally accepted- 1Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China
- 2Guizhou Children's Hospital, Zunyi, Guizhou Province, China
- 3Northern Jiangsu People's Hospital, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
- 4Second Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Guizhou Province, China
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Objective: To explore early surgical indications and clinical predictive factors for neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) to improve the prognosis of affected infants.Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 146 infants diagnosed with NEC at the Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University from January 2015 to December 2020. The infants were divided into two groups: the surgical treatment group (56 cases) and the non-surgical treatment group (90 cases).Maternal perinatal conditions, general infant characteristics, clinical manifestations, comorbidities, laboratory tests, and imaging findings were statistically analyzed.Significant factors were further analyzed using multivariate logistic regression, and predictive indicators were assessed by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Youden's index.Results: Statistically significant differences were observed between the two groups in birth weight, gestational age, abdominal wall erythema, absent bowel sounds, lethargy, fever, peritonitis, septic shock, metabolic acidosis, neonatal acute respiratory distress syndrome, and asphyxia (P<0.05). No significant differences were found in maternal perinatal conditions, sex, feeding method, age at onset, abdominal distention, bloody stool, vomiting, gastric retention, apnea, neonatal pneumonia, neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, sepsis, electrolyte disturbances, or respiratory failure (P>0.05). Laboratory and imaging markers such as prealbumin, IL-6, PCT, CRP, WBC, pneumoperitoneum, bowel wall gas, and portal venous gas showed statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression identified peritonitis (OR=95.635), IL-6 (OR=1.001), and portal venous gas (OR=22.551) as independent risk factors for early surgery in NEC (P<0.05). ROC curve analysis revealed that IL-6 (AUC=0.875) and PCT (AUC=0.798) demonstrated good predictive performance for early surgical intervention. The optimal cutoff values were 476 pg/mL for IL-6 (sensitivity 80.4%, specificity 85.6%) and 1.53 ng/mL for PCT (sensitivity 83.9%, specificity 70%).Peritonitis and portal venous gas are independent risk factors for early surgery in NEC. IL-6 and PCT are reliable predictive markers for determining the need for early surgical intervention in NEC.
Keywords: Neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis, Early surgery, Peritonitis, IL-6, PCT, Portal venous gas
Received: 06 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shang, Wang, Liu, Yang, Lu, Fu, Xiang and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuanmei Liu, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China
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