Gastric perforation in neonates: Analysis of five cases

Neonatal gastric perforation has always been a mysterious entity regarding its cause. Although some have definite causes e.g. TOP causing severe dilatation of the stomach, iatrogenic secondary to the introduction of a hard nasogastric tube but the majority have no obvious reasons. Many theories have been advocated such as gastric ischemia or aerophagia due to excessive crying. The common feature in the five cases seen at Maadi Military hospital over a period of 5 years was marked abdominal distension causing dyspnea, fortunately, all of them survived. This good survival rate in our opinion was due to the good pre and postoperative care as well as the lack of sepsis oftenly encountered with gastric juice leakage