ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on spontaneous intestinal perforation (SIP), which is an important disease entity that shares similarities with necrotizing enterocolitis. In fact, SIP is a separate condition entirely from NEC, with a very different pathogenesis, clinical history, and radiographic features. Importantly however, patients with SIP are often found to contaminate NEC datasets, a fact which has had a major, confounding impact on our understanding of NEC, and which has led to much confusion in the care of premature infants with these conditions. This chapter seeks to address this confusion, by highlighting the defining diagnostic and clinical features of NEC versus SIP, and by offering diagnostic insights that can be useful at the bedside.
