Recent experiences with intestinal resection in infants and children.

Abstract

INTESTINAL resection in infants has always been considered a formidable procedure because of the lethal effect of the primary lesion necessitating such radical therapy. Successful intestinal resections in the newborn and the infant have not been of common occurrence in the reported series until recent years. The significant factors which have played a role in reducing the operative mortality have been (1) the recognition by the surgeon and the pediatrician that the patients can be made better operative risks if a few hours are spent preoperatively in correcting fluid and chemical imbalance, (2) the use of blood preoperatively, during operative procedures and postoperatively in amounts which meet the needs of the individual patient, (3) the training of qualified anesthesiologists in the administration of anesthesia to this particular group of infants and children, (4) the use of chemotherapeutic agents which have proved to be of specific value against the organisms associated