LAUSR

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is an inflammatory bowel necrosis seen in premature infants. The etiopathogenesis of NEC is unclear, but increasing information suggests that genetic factors may alter the susceptibility to NEC and/or its severity, its clinical and histopathological manifestations, and if surgery is needed, of an adverse postoperative course and outcome. This review draws from existing studies focused on individual genes and others based on microarray-based high-throughput discovery techniques. We have included evidence from our own studies and from an extensive literature search in the databases PubMed, EMBASE, and Scopus. To avoid bias in the identification of studies, keywords were short-listed a priori from anecdotal experience and PubMed's Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) thesaurus.