Protective Impact of L-arginine against Necrotizing Enterocolitis

Abstract

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is the most common acute surgical disease in preterm infants in intensive neonatal care. Premature infants are infant born prematurely and have a low birth weight.

The disease is characterized by an inflammatory process in the intestines, which sometimes worsen and reach the level of necrosis. This process, in the intestinal wall, can destroy and kill the tissue of the intestinal wall and, later, it makes an intestinal perforation. Intestinal contents, in this case, leak to the abdominal cavity, endangering the child's life.

Different studies showed that the arginine level in many premature infants is low, and subsequent studies have linked low arginine plasma concentrations with NEC disease.

This paper concerned with awareness of this disease, its symptoms and its causes, in addition to L-arginine medication role in necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) treatment, which is a semi essential cationic amino acid .